- In March 2018, ISIS began to publish prominent announcements on its leading website (Akhbar al-Muslimeen) warning Egyptian residents to stay away from the election centers during the Egyptian presidential elections (March 26-28, 2018).
- The text of the warning: “Warning to Muslims in Sinai, Egypt and Upper Egypt. [You must] stay away from the election centers[1] on March 26, 27 and 28 [i.e., the days of the presidential elections]. If your home is adjacent to the election center, leave it temporarily, and do not walk by the election centers” (Akhbar al-Muslimeen, March 13, 2018).
ISIS’s warning to Muslims in Egypt to stay away from the election centers during the Egyptian presidential elections (Akhbar al-Muslimeen, March 13, 2018)
- In order to increase the media coverage of the warning, ISIS included it retroactively in all the postings that appeared on the Akhbar al-Muslimeen website from August 2014 to March 2018. This means that anyone who searches the Akhbar al-Muslimeen website for postings from previous years will find the warning there. This is quite unusual and has not been encountered by the ITIC up to now.
The addition of retroactive warnings: ISIS’s announcement on a posting from February 2015 on the Akhbar al-Muslimeen website warning Muslims to stay away from the election centers in Egypt during the presidential elections (Akhbar al-Muslimeen, February 19, 2015)
In the ITIC’s assessment, ISIS is liable to make an effort to implement this warning by carrying out attacks in the Sinai Peninsula and throughout Egypt during or shortly before the presidential elections. This is in order to try and disrupt the course of the elections and to convey the message that despite the intensive activity being carried out against it by the Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula, ISIS’s Sinai Province continues to maintain its operational capabilities and to attack the Egyptian regime.
[1] Marakez al-Intikhabat in Arabic. In Egypt, the places where the presidential elections are held are called election centers (Marakez Intikhabiya, Markaz Intikhabi in the singular form). This term refers to the places designated as polling stations on election day, where there are ballot boxes, elections committees, and voters. There will be 10,989 election centers throughout Egypt (Al-Youm al-Sabea, March 13, 2018). ↑
