Egypt Security Sector Report

This week’s dispatch includes a podcast interview with me, as well as reports on Syria, Palestine, Somalia, the debt crisis, conscription, militarization, US military aid, the Menedez trial, refugees, migration, prisons, and security crackdowns.

📁 Interview: Egypt 2025

📁 Syria

• The Lebanese government approved on Tuesday a request from the UAE to extradite Abdel Rahman al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian-Turkish poet and son of the late prominent Muslim scholar Youssef al-Qaradawi, who was detained by Lebanese security forces upon his return from a visit to Syria on 28 December. Egypt also seeks Qaradawi, whose arrest was linked to an Egyptian ruling in absentia sentencing him to five years in jail on charges of “opposing the state and inciting terrorism.”
  He was sent to Abu Dhabi on the following day.

• Names of Egyptians who took part in the Syrian insurgency are on the security watchlist at Egyptian airports. Their families are also targeted back home.

• A government source told al-Ahram that

  Egypt has sent a message via Arab diplomats who have met with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus asking for him to commit to non-intervention in Egyptian affairs.

  The source added that though the response “was positive”, Cairo remains apprehensive over Al-Sharaa’s true intentions. Unlike Arab capitals that have sent envoys to Damascus or received representatives of Syria’s new political regime, Egypt has opted to bide its time. A high-level Egyptian official will visit Syria “in due time”, but the date has yet to be scheduled.

• Syrian media activist Laith al-Zoubi was deported to Syria last week following his arrest in Hurghada.

  

• Another Syrian was deported by the police on Thursday for “security reasons.”

• The Syrian Embassy in Cairo has announced free travel permits for Syrians in Egypt who wish to return home but who do not have valid passports, and free return tickets, issued without the need for a prior appointment, as long as applicants present an ID and photo.

📁 Palestine

• FM Badr Abdelatty received a delegation from the PLO on Thursday. He stressed Cairo’s “full support” for Abu Mazen’s Palestinian Authority.

• Abdelatty told al-Arabiya Cairo refuses the deployment of any foreign troops in Gaza, and the Rafah Crossing will remain closed as long as Israel occupies the other side of the terminal.

• 313 Egyptian companies export their products to the Israeli market, offering a variety of goods, including marble, granite, food industries, frozen foods, electrical appliances, air conditioners, insulation materials, clothing, and textiles.

📁 Somalia