Despair is Sheikh Ibrahim al-Maniey’s biggest enemy as he struggles to keep the young men of his Mahdia tribe, based in Egypt’s northern Sinai peninsula, from joining ISIS’s local affiliate. The Sinai Province group, a branch of ISIS, has taken root and expanded since the government of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was toppled in 2013. It launched a campaign of assassinations and bombings against security and government officials, despite Egypt’s efforts to fight it with a campaign of airstrikes, home demolitions, and mass arrests in northwest Sinai. Rights advocates say at least 11,000 people have been arrested and detained in Egyptian prisons on terrorism accusations in 2015 alone.
“The government is pushing thousands of youth to say they are joining the Islamic State,” said an angry Maniey, speaking by telephone from the adjacent Gaza Strip. “I keep telling them, ‘This is a terrorist group. This is far from Islam. This will bring disaster upon you and the tribe.’ But they say, ‘Give me one alternative.’”