Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

Egypt and Tunisia are working to discredit the Islamist ideology of the Islamic State[ of Iraq and Levant] terrorist group through promoting moderate Islam. …

Ideologically, the Egyptian government is seeking to counter the IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) ideology through Al Azhar, the major Islamic university in Cairo. “It teaches a moderate line, a tolerant line of Islam, that is to respect others, mutual respect and peaceful coexistence,” Khaled Okasha, an Egyptian security expert, said in an interview.

To the west, Tunisia’s government is seeking to educate the country’s young people about extremist groups such as IS in a bid to prevent them from joining, said Najet Hammami, a Tunisian with the government’s Ministry of Religious Affairs who also heads a non-government organization. “For Tunisia, Daish has no legitimacy whatsoever,” she said, using the derogatory Arabic acronym for ISIL. …

Security officials estimate some 20,000 foreigner have joined IS in Syria and Iraq, including several thousand westerners. The FBI has identified at least a dozen Americans who have sought to join the group.

The administration’s diplomatic counterterrorism program appears to be having a minimal effect, based on the Islamic State’s continued holding of territory in Iraq and the spread of the group and its activities and attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, analysts say. The latest atrocity was the mass beheadings of Ethiopian Christians by IS terrorists in Libya.

Both Egypt and Tunisia are battling the rapid spread of IS in neighboring Libya, which is currently beset with an array of Islamist militant groups, including Al Qaida. Hammami said the United States could help fight terrorism by doing more to counter terrorist ideologies and less on the military and kinetic front.

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