President Donald Trump vowed Friday to crush “evil organizations of terror” following an attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt that killed more than two dozen people near Cairo and prompted the country’s leader to appeal to Trump to lead the fight against global terrorism. It marks a change from former President Barack Obama, who often kept el-Sissi at a distance and criticized Egypt’s human rights record and suspended some U.S. military aid. Trump and el-Sissi held talks in Saudi Arabia last week ahead of the Arab-Islamic-U.S. summit, a gathering that followed an April meeting at the White House. Trump has made fighting terrorism a focal point of his first overseas trip as president, which ends this weekend. During a stop in Saudi Arabia, Trump and King Salman inaugurated a state-of-the-art center in Riyadh aimed at monitoring and countering extremism.

Source: Egypt Independent May 26, 2017 21:56 UTC