For the first time since the July 30 Revolution, Egyptian Islamists agree on refusing to call the Islamic State (IS) a terrorist group. They reject the international coalition to fight IS and see it as an attempt to create division in the region and to target political Islam in general.

This agreement, however, reflects the Islamists’ state of confusion in Egypt after their image lost ground, due to IS’ violent acts and that the group was put into the same basket as the Islamists.

In an interview with Al-Monitor, Yusri Hamad, the vice president of the Salafist National Party, expressed his refusal to describe IS as an extremist or terrorist group, since he does not know its ideology and has not read much about it. “Perhaps some Iraqis, from within IS components, were tortured, which means IS does not represent jihadist groups. Many IS members joined the group as a reaction to the torture they endured under [Nouri] al-Maliki’s government or the US occupation,” he said.

Islamists, in Egypt as well as in other countries, seem to be unable to forget the US actions against the Islamists, after the 9/11 attack by al-Qaeda. Although the United States began campaigns against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks, and although it focused on extremist groups in many regions, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and others, most Islamists believed that the United States was fighting Islam in general and not just terrorist groups, Hamad said.