Egyptians See Simmering Insurgency Heating Up

CAIRO, Egypt -- Since July 3 when Egypt's powerful military removed Islamist President Mohammed Morsi from power, nearly 17,000 radical Muslims have waged a much more widespread campaign of violence against the state.

The military insists they are in a war for survival against terrorists.

"The government has to take all necessary precautions in order to finish any activities of the Muslim Brotherhood," Dr. Medhat Mourad Botros, an Egyptian lawyer, said.

But some Egyptians are beginning to accuse the military of oppressive tactics and blame them for fueling a jihadist insurgency in retaliation for Morsi's ouster. Nearly 17,000 Muslim Brotherhood members and other political activists have been imprisoned.

"It is clear that the military has the upper hand and we are turning into a dictatorship against secular forces," a Muslim Brotherhood supporter called Ahmad said.

While a sense of calm has returned to parts of Cairo, the potential for renewed violence still looms very large. Now there is a growing insurgency in the Sinai peninsula with frequent attacks against Egyptian security forces.

More than 200 security forces have been killed since last year, many of them by an al Qaeda-inspired group known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, Arabic for the "Champions of Jerusalem."

On Feb. 11, the group was suspected of blowing up a pipeline in the Sinai peninsula that carries natural gas to Jordan. They've also staged a series of bombings and suicide attacks on security forces in recent months.

Egypt, which has branded the Brotherhood a terrorist group, has accused its former leader of creating a military wing to attack security personnel.

"As long as elements of the Muslim Brotherhood continue to use violence, it opens the door for the military to also use violence against them giving the state lots of authority to crackdown and potentially turn us into a police state," Ishaq Ibrahim, with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Right, said.

The government ordered all mosques to deliver the same message to help quell the Islamists' rise. The message must be approved by authorities ahead of time and Muslim preachers who disobey the order will be replaced.