By Jana al-Masry | 2024-06-23

CAIRO -- Egypt has invested heavily in counter-terrorism operations with great success, analysts said, amid recent reports that an obscure new al-Qaeda affiliate has reared its head in the port city of Alexandria.

As a result of Egypt's vigilance, the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) has been contained, and groups like al-Qaeda pose little danger, they added.

"Egyptian security services, including the army, intelligence agencies and police, were able, within a relatively short period of time, to eliminate the threat of terrorist groups," terror group specialist Yahya Mohammed Ali told Al-Fassel.

So Egyptians were alarmed on May 7, when a hence unknown al-Qaeda affiliate claimed the assassination in Alexandria of an Israeli-Canadian businessman who exported frozen fruits and vegetables.

Analysts downplayed the so-called "Vanguard of Liberation" (Talae al-Tahrir) threat, saying the murder of Ziv Kipper may be a purely criminal matter, with possible Russian involvement.

It is entirely possible that Talae al-Tahrir's claim is "nothing but an attempt to obscure and conceal the truth" and to exploit the situation in Gaza, Ali said.

Limited scope

Talae al-Tahrir's social media posts reveal "this group did not exist before the Israeli businessman's assassination," said Ibn al-Waleed Center for Field Studies and Research's new media department director Mazen Zaki.

From the photos and videos that were posted "it can be ascertained that it is a group with modest capabilities," he told Al-Fassel.

"The group accused the slain man of working for the Mossad and recruiting Egyptian youth," he said. "However, the clarity of his movements, his transparency, the ease of access to information about him, and his non-concealment of his Israeli affiliation do not support the espionage allegations."

It is significant, Zaki said, "that the slain man had Ukrainian citizenship and was an opponent of the Russian war on Ukraine."

"This is clearly evident from his posts that are opposed to the Russian intervention and accuse Russia of waging a war of genocide, killing children and displacing civilians," he added.

Russian intelligence may have tried to conceal this "with the theatrics of the Talae al-Tahrir group to divert attention from the real purpose of the operation," he said.

If this hypothesis is confirmed by Egyptian security agencies, it "would constitute an obstacle to Russian-Egyptian relations," Zaki said.

Regardless of the perpetrator, he said, the assassination itself "harms the Egyptian economy ... and may cause many foreign businessmen to abandon their business in Egypt or even thoughts of entering the Egyptian market."