Shortly after the Islamist rebels eliminated the authoritarian president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Hashtag gathered steam within the Egyptian social media: “It is your flip, a dictator.”
The message of President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi from Egypt was unmistakable. However he hardly wanted the warning.
Because the extinguishing of the lengthy -standing dictator of Syria on December 8, Egyptian leaders noticed occasions within the Syrian capital Damascus, with gloomy vigilance, realizing properly that the revolutionary fireplace tends to unfold.
Either side had a tumultuous historical past after the Arab spring uprisings, which started in late 2010 and unfold to the Center East.
The Syrian rebellion ended virtually 14 years later with the autumn of Mr. Al-Assad. The Egyptian Revolution took down the longtime authoritarian president of the nation, Hosni Mubarak, and noticed that the Islamist political occasion was coming to energy within the first free elections within the nation. Mr. El-Sisi seized energy two years later in army absorption and he and the follower within the Persian Gulf and past cautious In Islamist teams that acquire all energy within the area, as they’ve simply finished in Syria.
Days after Mr Al-Assad escaped from Syria to Russia, the Egyptian safety forces arrested at the least 30 Syrian refugees residing in Cairo who spontaneously have a good time its fallIn response to the Egyptian Private Rights Initiative, a proper group.
The Egyptian authorities additionally make it tough for the Syrians to journey to Egypt after Mr Al-Assad’s overthrow, requiring most to obtain first safety permits.
Mr. El-Sisi has given an unusually widespread addresses in current weeks to guard his file.
“My arms have by no means been coloured with anybody’s blood and I’ve by no means taken something that isn’t mine,” he mentioned in December, every week after Mr. Al-Assad fell.
On this method, he appeared to draw distinction to the Syrian chief deposited as he rejected his personal file for human rights, together with slaughter by the Egyptian army, which he leads from what the rights say they’re at the least 817 individuals, Protesters in opposition to Mr. El- the idea of Sisi’s energy in 2013.
Because the rebels in Syria have taken energy, Egypt has arrested or started pursuing a number of individuals thought of political opponents, together with Director of a widely known proper group, the spouse of a detained political cartoonist and a Tiktok consumer who posted movies crucial of Mr El-Sisi. Egypt has already held about tens of 1000’s prisonersA lot of them Islamists.
“Two thousand and eleven are solely 14 years previous,” says Mirath F. Mabruk, an Egypt knowledgeable on the Center East Institute in Washington, citing the Egyptian Revolution yr. The Egyptian authorities, she mentioned, “they know issues snowballs.”
After years of deepening economic misery In Egypt, Mr. El-Sisi was already in a pointy weak place. Any trace that the Egyptians might catch the revolutionary flame of the Syrians don’t swear bother – not as a result of the Egyptians need an armed rebellion, mentioned G -Mabrow, however as a result of it might take little or no to maintain their discontent protest.
Essentially the most seen try to make the most of the second, got here from Ahmed al Mansour, an Egyptian, who left the nation to struggle the Syrian rebels years in the past. After Mr Al-Assad’s expulsion, he repeatedly received out in opposition to Mr. El-Sisi on-line from Damascus.
“Do you value a bullet,” mentioned Mr. Al-Mansour about Mr. El-Sisi in video Posted by X. It has been watched 1.5 million instances.
The risk despatched Egypt’s tv anchors, which regularly reinforce professional -government conversational factors of their nighttime exhibits, in turmoil. A number, Ahmed Musa, known as on the brand new leaders of Syria to behave.
“They’ve to inform us if they’re with what is occurring when our nation is directed,” he warnS
Shortly after their tirade in mid-January, the brand new Syrian authorities arrested Mr. Al-Mansour with a number of associates. He was detained on the way in which to fulfill with the Provisional Minister of Protection of the nation, in line with an announcement by the antisysical motion, based Mr Al-Mancur.
It’s unclear whether or not the Egyptian authorities had pushed his arrest.
The group of Mr. Al-Mansour known as on the Syrian authorities to launch him, saying that the Egyptian individuals have been exercising their rights in opposition to Mr El-Sisi, simply because the Syrians did in opposition to Mr Al-Assad. His present standing is unknown.
However even with Mr Al-Mancurus, different Egyptians are unlikely to cease complaining.
Many have damaged all the way down to Mr. El-Sisi after years of financial crises, the newest of which have been triggered by The constant shocks of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. However the issues are additionally rooted in authorities mismanagement and spending, together with in grand mega -projects.
With Egypt deep in debt and lack of income, the forex has crashesSome items have turn into tough to seek out and inflation has elevated.
Such difficulties have suffocated A inhabitants of about 111 million, the place virtually one in three has already lived in poverty, in line with official statistics.
Mr El-Sisi tried to defend himself from criticism, saying in current speech that the nation was already in a nasty monetary type when he took over in 2013 and that the speedy development of the inhabitants of Egypt made it tough to safe its residents. However he had spent years bragging concerning the prosperity he would deliver to Egypt – a prosperity that by no means got here, even when he found a pricey one pricey New capital Full with an excellent presidential palace.
“Persons are severely dissatisfied, so he’s simply making an attempt to cut back issues there,” mentioned G -Ja Mabruk.
At first, many welcomed the president as a hero and savior for the usage of army pressure to expel the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist Political Celebration, which gained the presidency after the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, however continued to alienate a lot of the inhabitants.
Mr. El-Sisi spent the subsequent years by attaching himself to the Brotherhood in Egypt, contemplating this as a risk to his energy. The Egyptian authorities pursued 1000’s of brotherhood members and suspected sympathizers, labeling terrorists whereas others fled the nation.
Even weakened, political Islamists stay a well-liked goal for Mr. El-Sisi and his supporters, who usually confer with the hazards of political Islam.
So it was not shocking when the Egyptian authorities expressed a word of warning to Hayat Tahrir al -Sham’s lightning lightning, the Islamist insurgent group that took duty in Syria. The group was as soon as linked to al -Qaeda, however has refused its extremist origin.
Egypt might have had a bit of love for Mr Al-Assad, the analysts mentioned, however he most popular the delicate stability he represented to the chaos and battle that encompass Egypt in Libya, Sudan and Gaza.
Due to this fact, she approached the connection with the brand new Syria.
In contrast to different Arab international locations, Egypt has not but held high -level meetings With Syrian officers.
Diplomats in Cairo say that Egyptian officers have summoned to different governments to be cautious of Syria’s new management and to not elevate penalties within the nation too shortly. They spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk publicly.
International Minister of Egypt, Badr Abdelati, has called Relating to regional and worldwide companions, to make sure that “Syria isn’t changing into a supply of regional instability or asylum for terrorist teams.”
Mahmoud Badr, an Egyptian pro-government activist who helped promote the protest motion of the Anti-Muslim Brotherhood, which paved the way in which for the rise of Mr. El-Sisi, informed X shortly after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched into Damascus that the group and the brotherhood have been indistinguishable S
“All that is a part of a community and nobody can persuade us in any other case,” he mentioned, citing widespread photographs exhibiting the chief of the Syrian group assembly with a distinguished Egyptian member of the Brotherhood.
And though anti -Isslamist sentiment stays sturdy among the many Egyptians and anti -Sisies.
“He’s coming to a really unhealthy second for Sisi,” says Broderick McDonald, an affiliate on the Worldwide Middle for the Analysis of Radicalization at Kings Faculty.
