The Egyptian president’s call for increased U.S. military aid this week was in direct response to information regarding plans for a major Islamic insurgency aimed at toppling Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s secular regime.
A senior Egyptian intelligence official told WND there is information ISIS has united with other jihadist groups and is planning an unprecedented surge inside Egypt to possibly begin as soon as next month.
The official said Cairo estimates the Sisi regime could face an existential threat from the planned insurgency.
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He warned that if the moderate Sisi regime is toppled, the Middle East will become far less stable.
“This is a very different story from anything that happening in last two to three years,” he said, referring to the planned insurgency.
Just Monday, bomb attacks in the Sinai Peninsula targeted the police and army. This past Sunday, the Egyptian military said it killed 70 suspected militants in northern Sinai the first week of March and arrested 23 others in counter-terror raids.
In December, WND reported Egypt arrested dozens of foreign jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula, stoking fears ISIS militants were seeking to open a new front.
In February, WND was first to report that thousands of foreign jihadists were attempting to infiltrate Egypt, with plans of a coming destabilization campaign akin to the insurgency in Syria, according to informed Middle Eastern security officials.
The officials warned at the time of a troubling development taking place among the al-Qaida-linked organizations already inside Egypt. They said there is information the militant groups are forming a de facto chain of command, with alarming coordination between the various jihadist factions embedded around the country.
The terrorist infrastructure is being set up beyond the Islamist stronghold of the Sinai Peninsula. The officials said al-Qaida-linked groups in Egypt have been forming divisions replete with leadership and assignments to specific territories, including in the Sinai, Suez regions, outside Cairo and along the Delta.
Now Sisi is appealing to the Obama administration and international community for help in battling the insurgency.
In a Fox News interview, Sisi appealed for an increase in U.S. military aid.
"It is very important for the United States to understand that our need for the weapons and for the equipment is dire, especially at the time when the Egyptians feel they are fighting terrorism and they would like to feel the United States is standing by them in that fight against terrorism," he said.
Secretary of State John Kerry is due in Egypt on Thursday for the Egypt Economic Development Conference, where he will meet with Sisi and discuss regional cooperation.