Egypt Security Sector Report

This week’s dispatch includes reports on Egypt and the regional wars in Palestine and Syria, the Red Sea, Sinai, foreign military cooperation, arms imports, Sisi vetting his future officers, militarization of civil service and labor, migration, refugees, prisons, and security crackdowns.

📁 Palestine, Syria

• As Bashar al-Assad’s fall is making the region’s autocrats nervous, Sisi met with King Abdullah II of Jordan in Cairo on Monday to discuss the situation in Syria and Palestine.

• Top officials from the US, Qatar, and Egypt have resumed their mediation efforts in recent weeks and have reported greater willingness from the warring sides to wrap up a deal.

• Egypt and Israel denied a Reuters report on Tuesday that Netanyahu was heading to Cairo to discuss a ceasefire deal.

• “It is no secret that for Egypt the rule of a militant group associated with al-Qaeda is something to worry about,” an Egyptian government source told al-Ahram on Wednesday.

  He explained that while Egypt was fully aware of the “disturbing influence” of the pro-Iran militant groups during the past 10 years in Syria “and had worked with other Arab countries to provide Syria with an Arab safety net to help reduce this influence”, this does not compare to having a radical regime in office.

  “So far things are unclear. The new regime in Syria remains enigmatic,” he said. He argued that it is far from apparent whether HTS rule in Syria will be similar to that of radical groups in other Muslim majority countries or if it will be “similar to the Turkish model”.

• Sisi warned of the potential political and economic dire consequences of ongoing developments in Syria, including Israeli assaults on its sovereignty and territorial integrity, during his speech at the 11th Summit of the Organization of Eight Developing Countries (D-8) on Thursday in the New Administrative Capital.
  Regional leaders, including the Turkish, Iranian, and Palestinian presidents, attended the event and discussed Syria and Gaza. Mehdi Sanaei, advisor to the Iranian president, said Egypt and Iran were likely to reopen their embassies soon.
  Egyptians bombarded social media platforms with ridicule of Sisi’s new presidential palace for its horrible artistic taste and megalomaniac lavish spending at a time when the country is struggling with a debt crisis.

• The Egyptian police issued deportation orders for at least three Syrians detained in 6 October City, a local rights group said yesterday. They were among dozens arrested shortly after celebrating in the streets the fall of al-Assad.

• BDS Egypt denounced the universities’ ban on Palestinian scarves.

• Families of Egyptians who disappeared in Syria or who were detained in al-Assad’s prisons are hoping to locate them.

📁 The Red Sea

• The USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group (CVN-75) is now in the US CENTCOM area of responsibility after transiting the Suez Canal last week.

• Fitch Solutions downgraded on Wednesday its forecasts for Egypt’s real GDP growth in the current FY2024/2025, which ends by June 2025, from 4.2% to 3.7%, over the Suez Canal disruption.

• After the capsizing of three liveaboards in 20 months, resulting in the deaths of British tourists, the British government said last week that “there is cause for serious concern about the safety of some of the Egyptian dive boats operating in the Red Sea.”
  Following the protocols in the International Maritime Organization Casualty Investigation Code, the British Marine Accident Investigation Branch “has formally registered the UK as a Substantially Interested State in the Egyptian safety investigations into these accidents.”

📁 Sinai