Terror in London (3): Chairman of Egyptian Parliament Foreign Relations Committee, Mustafa Fiqi and Egyptian General Ahmad Abd Al-Halim on Jews, Christians and Other Groups that May Be Responsible

The following are excerpts from an interview with Mustafa Fiqi, chairman, of the Egyptian Parliament foreign affairs committee and with General Ahmad Abd Al-Halim of the Egyptian Council of Foreign Affairs. Channel 1 of the Egyptian TV aired this interview on July 7, 205

Fiqi:Egypt was one of the first countries to call attention to the phenomenon of terrorism in its international form. We said repeatedly, particularly to the British, who were burnt by its fire today – and we are saddened by these bloody events in London. They were always convinced that all those whom we call terrorists are political opposition groups that the Egyptian and other governments in the Middle East were monitoring, and that there is no reason whatsoever to restrict them and that they should be granted the freedom of speech and movement, and work permits. Until they were burnt by its fire, starting with 9/11 and up to now, and they have begun to understand the truth. Now some sense of awareness has begun to emerge in the entire world, that this phenomenon is not connected to a particular religion, country, or culture, but rather it is a phenomenon that is spreading everywhere. There are terrorists in every religion and nationality. Perhaps, by chance, there are Muslims who carry out some of the terrorist operations at this stage, but Jews carried out terrorist operations in the past, and Christians have carried out terrorist operations as well. No religion has a monopoly on terrorism. But we as Arabs and Muslims feel a deep concern about the linkage between terrorism as a phenomenon and Islam as a civilization, history, and culture.

General Abd Al-Halim:These groups, as we said and as was mentioned, are not just Muslim. There are many extremist groups. We've all heard of Bader-Meinhof. We've all heard of the Red Brigades, the Red Army, and many other groups. Even if we don't hear about these groups in the media, we can't exclude them. It's possible that these groups operate today under the guise of Al-Qaeda, and it's attributed to Al-Qaeda, and there is a communique saying that Al-Qaeda and so on. These organizations exist in many countries. As we said, we're talking about a decentralized organization and they are operating under the name of... and they publish a communique stating that it was Al-Qaeda that carried out this operation.