For Egypt, Islamic State One Threat Among Many

The Sinai Peninsula, long an outpost for terrorist groups, has been racked by another spate of violence since last week, when Islamic State franchise Wilayat Sinai carried out a series of coordinated, large-scale attacks in the town of Sheikh Zuweid on July 1. The tactics used by the group exhibit a marked change from previous Sinai attacks and were adopted from methods employed by the Islamic State to capture and control territory in Syria and Iraq.  

The Sinai attacks come in the wake of the targeted assassination of Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat on June 30 and an uptick of violence elsewhere in Egypt that the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will have to manage. Egypt faces multiple internal threats from different and even competing jihadist groups. While they do not currently pose an existential threat to the government, Cairo will have its hands full combating its increasingly varied Islamist and jihadist antagonists.