Mohamed Seif Eldin-Cairo
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said that his country's army is the real center of gravity in the region in general.
This came during an intervention in the opening session of the activities of the eighth youth conference held at the Manara International Conference Center in the suburb of Fifth Settlement (East Cairo), which is entitled evaluation of the experience of combating terrorism locally and regionally.
This is the first indirect response from the Egyptian president to the videos of the Egyptian contractor and artist Mohamed Ali, whom he and the leaders of the armed forces accused of financial and administrative corruption, and spread extensively on social media platforms.
Sisi added: We can not accept the abuse of the Egyptian army in light of the achievements and what it represents for the Egyptian state, accusing some of abusing the army with the purpose of distorting and demolishing the state.
El-Sisi described the January 25, 2011 revolution as a conspiracy targeting the army and police, pointing out that the popular movement in 2011 produced weak state capacity and opened the way for "terrorist" entities.
He added that what he described as terrorist groups when they failed to overthrow the Egyptian army and the Ministry of Interior, decided to lead the state, but failed very miserably (referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is classified by Egypt as a terrorist) for not having experience in state-building or state-building science.
He commented, "I told them, as I am the director of military intelligence when you have one study center, they will be ready to lead the state, the flag of the countries, not ready for him.
"The state and the people have two options: either leave the government to terrorist groups, or face a confrontation to take them out and hold their hands," he said.
During the past few days, social media sites topped the videos of the Egyptian actor and contractor Mohamed Ali in which he attacked Sisi, and won the attention of Egyptians.
Ali, who described himself as a young Egyptian pharaoh, accused the Egyptian president, his wife and army leaders of wasting billions of pounds of public money on personal interests, as well as projects without economic study or feasibility.
The Egyptian contractor revealed, for example, that the army leaders instructed him to rush to Alexandria to build a palace quickly, because Sisi and his wife decided to spend Eid there, and said that the cost of the palace amounted to 250 million pounds unnecessarily, and then came the wife of Sisi victory and requested amendments costing 25 million LE, explaining that all this cost for construction only, and does not include the cost of equipment and decorations.