Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Egyptian counterpart this weekend to discuss the Obama administration's plan to fight terrorist group ISIL.
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi's spokesman told reporters after the meeting that Egypt had urged Kerry not to focus on just one terrorist group, CNS News reported.
But while the administration’s focus has been largely centered on ISIS, Cairo sees the problem as a far broader one.
A spokesman for President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi said that in talks with Kerry the president had "stressed that any international coalition against terrorism must be a comprehensive alliance that is not limited to confront a certain organization or to curb a single terrorist hotbed but must expand to include all the terrorist hotbeds across the Middle East and Africa."
The spokesman emphasized that terrorists motivated by Islamic extremism must be fought "wherever they may be."
"I support the international efforts to fight terrorism and work on supporting these efforts, and support the necessary measures to put an end to this phenomenon, whether in Iraq, Libya, any part of the Arab world, or in Africa," he said.
According to his remarks, Egypt views all Islamic extremists as the same and equally worthy of international action.
"We believe that this extremist, exclusionary ideology is common among all terrorist organizations," Shukri said, adding that Egypt monitors cooperation between such groups and recognizes that they pose threats across borders between national states.
"They want to eliminate these states so that this extremist ideology will prevail."
Shukri said Egypt believed defeating terrorism was "a collective responsibility."
Saudi Arabia recently took a similar stance on the war on terror.
The view that the coalition Kerry is building should not be limited to ISIS in Syria and Iraq was also aired last week by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. After a conference during which Kerry and representatives from 10 Arab countries pledged to tackle ISIS, Saud spoke of the need for a "comprehensive" approach to the problem that "extends to deal with this terrorism that strikes Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen."
He said those countries had become safe havens for "these organizations and their networks, in particular with regard to the transfer of weapons and ammunition to them and among them."
It has not yet been reported how the Obama administration is reacting to the calls for broader action from these countries.