Last week's assassination attempt against minister of interior Mohamed Ibrahim, as well as further bombing attacks on many government buildings, have reminded the public of the terrorist attacks which took place in Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s. The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies have made tremendous efforts since the toppling of former president Mohamed Morsi on 30 June to reverse what they claim was a “coup d'état”. However, not only have they failed to achieve their goal, they have been gaining further hatred and distrust as a result of the terrorist attacks. The danger, according to several political analysts, is one of a potential shift by Brotherhood members and their allies to adopt violence. The Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (EACPE), a pressure group, fears that there may be an escalation of violence in the country during the coming period, asking the Ministry of Interior and the Armed Forces to track down those responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians and members of the security forces. The necessary actions should be taken to fight the terrorism and violence that is obstructing the revolution in Egypt and aims to take the country back to the bloody events of the 1990s. Egypt has a long history of radical Islamist terrorism, and if the peaceful strategy advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood is perceived as having failed in the light of recent events, there may be a reappearance of terrorist attacks against the government. During the 1990s, two organisations, Jihad, led by Ayman Al-Zawahri, and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, unleashed a wave of terror across Egypt. Targeting Egypt's tourism industry, military and police officials, public figures and politicians, and secular cultural symbols, the terrorist campaign shook the nation. In May 1987, former minister of interior Hassan Abu Basha survived an assassination attempt perpetrated by Islamist militants, including Ayman Al-Zawahri's brother Hussein Al-Zawahri. In October 1990, the Islamic Jihad movement attempted to assassinate interior minister Abdel-Halim Moussa, but ended up killing People's Assembly speaker Refaat Al-Mahgoub instead. In 1992, writer Farag Fouda was assassinated in front of the Egyptian Society for Enlightenment by Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya. He was shot with a machine gun in front of his son. 1993 was a particularly severe year for terrorist attacks in Egypt, when some 1,106 people were killed or wounded. More than 120 policemen were killed in that year due to terrorist attacks, and 111 senior police officials and their bodyguards were shot dead in daylight ambushes. An assassination attempt against Safwat Al-Sherif, the former speaker of the Shura Council, took place in the same year. Al-Sherif survived, but two of his guards did not. The Jihad, allegedly working with Sudanese intelligence agents, almost succeeded in assassinating former president Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in June 1995. Two years later, in November 1997, a massacre took place in Luxor when 62 people were killed, most of them tourists. According to a press release issued by the EACPE, the presidency should now start working on national reconciliation between the disputing parties, along with the different political parties, movements and civil society, in order to bring about peace and security. However, Amr Al-Shobaki, an analyst at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said that there was no room for reconciliation between the Muslim Brotherhood, on the one hand, and the state and different political parties and movements, on the other. Peaceful members and supporters of the Brotherhood should be reintegrated into politics, he said. “But at the same time this does not mean that the government along with the different political trends can accept the Muslim Brotherhood's principles,” Al-Shobaki said. Al-Shobaki said that the allies of the Brotherhood would likely continue protesting in the streets to create a general state of anxiety and a lack of security in order to draw attention to their demands. “They will continue to provoke the security apparatus, hoping for a harsh reaction in order to promulgate the idea that the Mubarak-era police state is back, which is completely untrue,” he explained. For the time being, the Brotherhood and its supporters have been playing on the fact that hundreds of Morsi supporters have been killed since he was toppled at the end of June. Allegations of cruelty committed against them by the police and armed forces have been made, and Al-Shobaki said that the group was trying to appear the victim in an ongoing struggle. “This is not new, as they have been doing the same thing for decades,” he said. “This is what they did when they assassinated prime minister Mahmoud Al-Nuqrashi in 1948, not to mention their failed attempt to assassinate former president Gamal Abdel-Nasser in the 1950s. This is what they have been doing until now: they commit a crime and then they play the victim. But that will not work today,” Al-Shobaki added. The Muslim Brotherhood along with other Islamists suffered from repression during the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak, as well as under the late presidents Anwar Al-Sadat and Gamal Abdel-Nasser. As a result, they resorted to organised violence and bombings during the 1980s and 1990s. Although the Muslim Brotherhood was weakened by the ousting of Morsi, the group is likely to continue its protests. Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, said that violent attacks could continue during the coming period. However, these were likely to diminish. “Brotherhood figures and Islamist activists will lead more demonstrations, but these are likely to decline in influence,” Nafaa said. As most top figures of the Brotherhood have been arrested, the group has lost its ability to mobilise the public. “The Brotherhood's strong organisational skills depend on its members' blind obedience to their leaders. With their leadership being jailed, they cannot deploy their supporters effectively,” Nafaa said. The group has lost public support, making it difficult for it to accomplish positive results. But the government and the authorities should still be alert to the risk of attacks, Nafaa added.
