Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (Photo: Reuters)
The Muslim Brotherhood group has created a “jihadist ideology” now utilised by all extremist groups worldwide, Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Friday.
In comments to the state news agency MENA, Shoukry urged the international community to combat all terrorist groups, not only the Islamic State group which has seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq and is expanding its presence in Libya.
"Egypt calls for a comprehensive terrorism-combating operation that targets all terrorist organisations whether Islamic State, [Nigeria's Boko Haram] or [Syria's Al-Qaeda branch] the Nusra Front or any other group," Shoukry said on the sidelines of a ministerial conference in Beirut.
"These groups should be dealt with equally firmly and with the same determination of the international coalition fighting Islamic State," he said
The US along with a number of Western and Arab states have been carrying out air strikes on Islamic State fighters for nine months, which Washington said have killed over 10,000 IS insurgents.
But the Egyptian minister said that it is equally necessary to focus on using political, cultural and economic means to confront to the ideologies of extremist groups, on top of which is the Muslim Brotherhood.
The minister said the group, which Egypt designated as a terrorist organisation in 2013, was behind "this exclusionary jihadist ideology" now used by all extremist groups in the world.
"There is no group less terrorist than the other. Terrorism is terrorism," he said.
Arab League military chiefs decided in March to set up a region-wide force aimed at combating jihadists, with members given four months to agree on its composition and mode of intervention.
The minister said the force will "repel threats to Arab national security and firmly protect Arab interests."
He said that Egypt and member states are currently working on the logistic and technical aspect of the force, without specifying when the force will actually be formed.
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