KHARTOUM: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi landed in Islamist neighbour Sudan yesterday for what an analyst said would be an attempt to shore up a regional alliance against Islamic “terrorism”.
The official Suna news agency said Sisi was “on a short visit to hold talks with President (Omar) Al Bashir.”
About 300 Islamists protested the visit outside a downtown Khartoum mosque, a witness said. Sisi arrived a day after he told the African Union summit in Equatorial Guinea that the continent must reinforce cooperation to face a “plague” of cross-border terrorist groups. He took a similar message to Algeria on Wednesday during his first foreign trip since his election in May.
“Egypt is trying to build a regional alliance to fight terrorism,” University of Khartoum political scientist Safwat Fanous said. So they would like to see Sudan as part of this alliance.” Sisi, while he was still army chief, toppled Islamist president Mohamed Mursi last July. Sisi then won the May presidential poll by a landslide after crushing the opposition.AFP
