'Jihad or Humiliation': Inside an ISIS Campaign to Recruit Egyptians

Screen grab from the Al-Malhama video “Message to our people in Egypt”

A message posted online yesterday urges Egyptians to join the Islamic State, arguing that the Muslim Brotherhood hasn’t done enough to topple President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi.

“We are sending you these messages because we indeed feel the wrong that’s done to you,” said the message posted by the “All Tweets Ansar Association” on a file-sharing site. “Muslims nowadays are done through with living in fear now it’s not the time to run but to be steady, to fight back.”

“Why do you want to respond in peace to a someone that wants to kill you? Islam gives your [sic] the right to defend your self,” the “campaign message to the people of Egypt” continues.

“Peaceful demonstrations that you are proud of resulted in another regime that is far more worst [sic] than before. Muslim Brotherhood has no answer in their hands, they are existed in more than 80 years what they have achieved. More than 80 years in the political wing and the result is now that most of their leaders are waiting for death sentence. Peaceful demonstration leads you to prison while Jihad in the path of Allah leads you to glory.”

El-Sisi, who has angered extremists by attending a Coptic Mass and warned of terrorists’ desire to “kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants,” called last month for a “unified Arab force” to fight ISIS. He launched a series of airstrikes against ISIS targets in Libya after the brutal beheading of 21 Coptic Christians who had gone to work there. He also quickly put in place plans to evacuate remaining Egyptians from Libya.

The call to Egyptians to join ISIS was supplemented with a 13-minute video released by the pro-ISIS Al-Malhama Brigade featuring footage of Egyptian protests and former President Mohamed Morsi along with news footage of el-Sisi in regard to strikes on ISIS targets.

The print message posted online charged that military and secularists “created an alliance to fight Islam” and “add to them the Christians who we all know want to rule again after Islam erased ignorance …in Egypt.”

“They have long and unfinished business with Muslims and they are good at hiding it with another banner. Their fight is clear indeed. Muslims are so deep in sleep that they are ready to believe in what ever they have been told.”

They repeat a persistent charge of the Muslim Brotherhood — that Coptic women who convert to Islam are disappeared by the Christian church. The statistics tell a different story of abduction, rape, slavery, beatings, forced conversion and forced marriages of Coptic women by Islamists. Mary Sameh George, 25, was dragged from her car and savagely stabbed and beaten to death by a protest mob a year ago for reportedly having a cross hanging from her rearview mirror in a suburb considered a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold.

The message trying to rally membership for ISIS, though, said Muslims must think of “hundreds others who are being raped, tortured in the Apostate jails and detention centers.”

The choice for Egyptians is “jihad or humiliation,” the message states, underscoring this with a video showing el-Sisi with the Egyptian Coptic Pope Tawadros II on Christmas Eve in Cairo.

“Compare between what Jihad achieves and what peace achieves. Through Jihad we ruled the world and through peace we got killed in the street. Rest of us got arrested our women are being raped Apostate regime ruled,” the plea continues. “In the day of Judgement you will be asked! Why do you leave Jihad, while it’s your only choice. Are you scared of death? Can’t you see it’s also coming to you with your peaceful demonstrations?”

Protesters are urged to “leave peace, take gun.”

“O’ Egyptians Islamic State is waiting for you,” it continues, urging battle against “pharaoh” and his soldiers, “coconuts” (moderate Muslims), and apostates. “Come and join. Come and raise the flag of Islam.”

Muslims, it says, have the caliphate as their “only choice” against “apostate” el-Sisi.

“What will be your excuse of not fighting the Enemy of Islam? Now that the caliphate is in your lands!!!”

There’s already a branch of ISIS in the Sinai peninsula, one that warned on the same file-sharing site as the Egyptian recruitment posting last week that they have a contingent of suicide bombers and a weapons stockpile to go after “the Egyptian army collaborator with the Zionists in the Sinai.”

That statement said they’re under “huge pressure” to accept new recruits but building “strong organizational structure” is their first priority.

Israeli Defense Forces Col. Arik Chen told reporters last week that ISIS activity in the Sinai “is of great concern to the army and influences our preparedness for any incident that might occur.”

A March 12 report by the Institute for the Study of War noted “a number of large utility vehicles have been stolen in North Sinai recently, suggesting that ISIS affiliate group ‘Wilayat Sinai,’ formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, may be planning large-scale vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attacks.” Those vehicles include a garbage truck, an ambulance and water tankers.