THE SECOND U.S. - EGYPT CT JOINT WORKING GROUP

C O N F I D E N T I A L CAIRO 001696

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

FOR S/CT AND NEA/ELA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/19/2016
TAGS: PTER PREL PGOV KISL ASEC EG
SUBJECT: THE SECOND U.S. - EGYPT CT JOINT WORKING GROUP

Classified by ECPO Minister Counselor Michael Corbin for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

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Summary
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1. (C) Egypt hosted the second U.S.-Egypt Counterterrorism
Joint Working Group on February 26, 2006. In a full day of
talks, S/CT Amb. Crumpton and a six-member U.S. delegation
discussed with the GOE's Inter-Ministerial Counterterrorism
Committee the importance of a coordinated, interdisciplinary
approach to fighting terror. The GOE took the opportunity to
assail the illegal-but-tolerated Muslim Brotherhood as "the
mother of all terrorist groups" and cautioned against any
dialogue with them. Both sides highlighted the challenge of
the propagation of extremist ideologies on the Internet. The
GOE affirmed its full commitment to combat terror finance and
its integration into international mechanisms like the Egmont
group. The two sides discussed expanding technical
cooperation, including a proposal by the ATA program for a
U.S.-funded and administered project that would upgrade the
GOE's operational CT capabilities. End summary.

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Coordination and Cooperation Keys to Victory over Terror
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2. (C) In the follow up to the inaugural session in
Washington in July, 2003, The GOE hosted S/CT Ambassador
Crumpton and a six member U.S. delegation for the second U.S.
- Egypt Counterterrorism Joint Working Group (CT JWG) on
February 26. The U.S. delegation, led by Amb. Crumpton,
included NEA/ELA Deputy Director Stephanie Williams, Doug
Rosenstein, Director of Anti-Terrorism Assistance in the
Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Patrick Heffernan of the
Treasury Department's Office of Global Affairs, Gershon
Kieval of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael
Donovan of the Agency's Counterterrorism Center, and Patrick
Worman of S/CT. Welcoming the U.S. delegation, Justice
Minister Mahmoud Aboul Leil, Chairman of the GOE's
Inter-Ministerial Counterterrorism Committee, affirmed that
terrorism can not be eliminated through individual efforts.
Cooperation and coordination, within and between governments,
was the key to victory.


3. (C) Senior Justice Ministry Advisor and Member of
Parliament Iskandar Ghattas noted that Egypt's
Inter-Ministerial CT Committee had been founded in the wake
of the Luxor massacre of 1997, Egypt's most heinous act of
terror. The steady work of this committee, which includes
the Ministries of Justice, Defense, Interior and Foreign
Affairs, in addition to the Public Prosecution service, the
General Intelligence Service, and State Security, proves the
GOE's commitment to waging a continuous and sophisticated
campaign against terror, Ghattas asserted. Egypt is
currently a signatory to 12 multilateral CT instruments,
Ghattas noted, adding that Egypt ratified in the past year
the conventions for the suppression of terrorist bombings,
the prevention of terrorist finance, and non-proliferation of
nuclear fissile materials.


4. (C) Speaking on behalf of the USG, S/CT Ambassador
Crumpton echoed Minister Aboul Leil's emphasis on cooperation
and coordination. "Our partnership is more important than
ever," he affirmed. In the war on terror, which could last
for decades, an interdisciplinary approach, with close
coordination among concerned entities, and between allied
governments, would make the difference between success and
failure. Amb. Crumpton cited two key elements of the U.S. CT
strategy: attacking the leadership of terrorism groups and
denying these groups safe havens.

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Confronting Terror in the Region: The Egyptian View
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5. (C) General Ibrahim Hammad of the Egyptian State Security
Investigations Service (SSIS) took the opportunity of Egypt's
briefing on regional and international terrorist activities
to attack the Muslim Brotherhood (MB),the political-social
organization founded and centered in Egypt with branches and
elements across the Middle East. In preface, Hammad observed
that the core challenge in fighting terror in the region is
ideological. Some groups maintain ideologies irreconcilable
with modernity and the international order, Hammad asserted.
Dialogue with extremist groups constitutes a reversal and a
set back, he continued.


6. (C) The M is one such group, Hammad asserted, describing
t as "the mother of all terrorist organizations." gyptian
Islamic Jihad, which assassinated President Sadat and the
Egyptian Islamic Group, which was responsible for the 1997
Luxor massacre, both grew out of the MB, he charged. Sheikh
Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted for his role in the 1993 World
Trade Center bombing, had also been an MB, he added. "We now
here of more and more countries openly pursuing dialogue with
this group. This is a grave mistake," he asserted.


7. (C) (Comment: Hammad's presentation was an unsubtle
message that the USG should not contemplate dialogue with the
MB. We believe the GOE's enmity toward the MB is based more
on its status as a political adversary than as a terrorist
organization. In other contexts, senior GOE leaders have
told us they do not/not believe the MB is involved in
planning or execution of acts of terrorism. The GOE's
tolerance of the MB, including the group's open if unofficial
participation in the late 2005 parliamentary elections, which
yielded 88 MB seats in the People's Assembly, belies its
description of the group as a terrorist organization. That
said, the GOE's assertion that the MB's ideology is starker
than portrayed by some its spokesmen, and its description of
the MB's role in promoting a general atmosphere in which
extremism can grow, is well taken. End comment.)


8. (C) Moving on from the MB, Hammad said the GOE was gravely
concerned by the challenges presented by the proliferation of
extremist websites on the Internet. He acknowledged that
Egypt was facing difficulty in adapting and responding to
these new challenges that were consequences of rapid
technological innovations. Terrorists are using the Internet
to research plan and execute operations, he asserted. Hammad
regretted the lack of international coordination and
cooperation to quickly remove from the Internet extremist
websites. "If we could shut these sites down we could reduce
terrorist operations by 50 percent," he asserted.

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Confronting Terror: U.S. Views
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9. (C) U.S. delegation members from the National
Counterterrorism Center and the Agency CTC provided a
comprehensive overview, from the U.S. perspective, on active
terrorist organizations, sponsors, safe havens across the
greater Near East and South Asia region. Amb. Crumpton
agreed with Hammad's identification of the Internet as a
potentially lethal tool in the hands of terrorists. Agreeing
that the Internet must be carefully policed and monitored,
Amb. Crumpton noted that taking down extremist websites was
not necessarily an effective tactic: Extremist groups are
often able to restore websites or put up new ones within
minutes.


10. (C) Cairo LEGAT affirmed the strong working relations and
cooperation the FBI enjoys with Egypt's Ministry of Justice,
the State Security Investigative Service, and the Egyptian
General Intelligence Service. Exchanges of information and
intelligence are frequent and routine, and requests for
assistance quickly processed. Director Mueller's February
visit to Cairo boosted an already strong relationship, and
plans are underway for a very senior Egyptian security
delegation to visit the U.S. to discuss deepening technical
cooperation in areas like forensic capabilities and biometric
data management.

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Terror Finance
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11. (C) Assistant Justice Minister Serry Siam, Chairman of
Egypt's National Committee for Coordination to Combat Money
Laundering, reviewed Egypt's efforts to fight terror finance
in Egypt. Having ratified last year the latest UN Convention
to Combat Terror Finance, Egypt has had a modern terror
finance law on the books since 2002. The GOE maintains its
own Financial Intelligence Unit, the Money Laundering
Combating Unit of the Central Bank, which has links with
counterpart units all over the world, including through the
Egmont Group. Egypt will host the upcoming annual meeting of
the Egmont Group in mid March (Note: The Egmont Group annual
meeting is currently underway in Cairo and Egypt will also
host a meeting in late March of the MENA region Financial
Action Task Force and an outreach conference with private
banking sector representatives at which the Ambassador will
speak. End Note).


12. (C) Echoing Gen. Hammad's anti-MB presentation, Siam
asserted that the MB was implicated in terror finance efforts
from the Balkans to Pakistan, and had a central role in the
notorious Gulf-based Bank At-Taqwa. The bank has since been
shut down, Serry observed, but its leadership has receded
into the background.

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Technical Cooperation: Anti-Terrorist Unit Proposal
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13. (C) By mutual agreement, discussion of a new proposal by
the Department of State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security was
deferred until Amb. Crumpton's February 27 call on State
Security Director General Hassan Abdel Rahman. Following a
broader discussion of security ties and a readout of the JWG
discussions with the SSIS Director, Amb. Crumpton invited
Doug Rosenstein, Director of the DS Bureau's Anti-Terrorism
Assistance Program to propose a new initiative developed by
his office. Rosenstein proposed that the USG partner with
Egyptian security forces to develop a modern Anti-Terrorist
Unit (ATU) that integrated intelligence gathering,
assessment, and response capabilities in a comprehensive
approach. The effort, fully funded by the USG, would involve
the deployment of a full-time program coordinator who would
integrate with the MOI and oversee allocation and management
of resources in recruiting, training, and equipping the new
team.


14. (C) Abdel Rahman responded favorably, if vaguely, to the
proposal, stating that he was open to all forms of technical
collaboration with the U.S., which he believed to be in both
countries interest. However, in a follow-on meeting, Foreign
Liaison Director General Wasfy Amer, told Rosenstein and
D/RSO that Egypt already had a functioning Anti-Terrorist
Unit and would prefer to focus on enhancing the existing
unit's capabilities rather than building a new one from
scratch. Both sides agreed to continue discussions on the
issue.

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Areas for Future Cooperation
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15. (C) To close the JWG session, Minister of Justice Aboul
Leil hosted a lunch for the U.S. delegation at the Egyptian
Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Club. Both sides agreed that
there were a number of areas in which the U.S. and Egypt
should work together in the following year:

-- Countering the spread of violent ideologies, particularly
on the Internet;

-- Sharing information and coordinating policies on threats
emerging from Iran, particularly in light of the current WMD
standoff;

-- Exploring areas for further technical assistance to the
GOE, particularly regarding security at the Sinai/Gaza/Israel
border and programs to upgrade Egypt's biometric data
capabilities;

-- Expanding law enforcement cooperation, to include possible
exchanges between veteran U.S. police officers and Egyptian
police departments;

-- Increasing focus on MB-sponsored charities operating in
the U.S. as possible terror finance channels.


16. (U) S/CT has cleared this message.
RICCIARDONE