The Sinai of all fears
Per la penisola del Sinai l'anno 2013 è stato uno dei più critici dalla sua liberazione dall'occupazione israeliana.
It took a war in 1973 and a decade of negotiations to restore Sinai to
Egypt. When it was returned to Egyptian sovereignty 1983 the peninsula
looked forward to the implementation of development plans that would
make it a land of peace and prosperity for its inhabitants and those
around it. Unfortunately, the next two decades (1984-2004) witnessed
little tangible progress apart from the tourist resorts that emerged in
the south and helped turn that area into one of the world’s prime
tourist destinations. Northern Sinai remained remote from the march of
economic development, in spite of the fact that, with its long stretches
of sandy beaches along the Mediterranean coastline, it is endowed with
natural beauty as well as potential for industry.
Having remained fallow for so long Sinai entered an even grimmer period
ushered in by terrorist attacks against southern resorts in 2004. The
close of 2013 marks the end of a decade of terrorism and, hopefully, the
beginning of the implementation of long-delayed plans to turn Sinai
into the prosperous and thriving environment first envisaged 40 years
ago.
A vicious war between the army and extremist factions and jihadist
militias, now in its fifth month, has seen progress made towards
dismantling the terrorist structure in Sinai. But it is important to
bear in mind that the crisis runs deep. There has been cross-border
infiltration which has largely been checked through the closure of most
of the Sinai-Gaza tunnels. Now many leaders of takfiri factions have
been apprehended, and weapon arsenals have been captured. In the wake of
what Sinai activist Ghazi Abu Farraj describes as “the clean-up
operation after precision surgery” there has to be a comprehensive plan
capable of immunising the area from any resurgence in terrorism.
Militant field leaders like Abu Mounir, Kamal Allam and Shadi
Al-Maniei, and ideological organisational leaders such as Abu Faisal,
founder of the Sharia Courts in northern Sinai, are not the only
players. In fact, much of the action takes place off-stage. Some of the
actors ate known, others not. Arab and other countries are involved,
some through their intelligence agencies, others by means of groups and
organisations that they fund. There are jihadist ideologues who
pronounce fatwas from behind bars, such as Abu Mohamed Al-Maqdisi in
Jordan, and Wahhabi takfiri sheikhs who issue similar edicts, such as
Abi Al-Munzir Al-Shanqiti, author of a lengthy tract calling on
jihadists in Sinai to take up arms against the Egyptian army.
Other issues closely intertwine with events in Sinai. Extremists have
used the Palestinian crisis and the sustained blockade of Gaza to
legitimise aggression against Egypt. Hamas is reeling. The commercial
traffic through the network of tunnels between the Sinai-Gaza border
engaged some 50,000 workers and was such a major source of revenue for
the Hamas government, so much so an entire ministry was set up to
oversee the tunnels. That Hamas now feels beleaguered on this front
suggests two possible scenarios. The first is that it has become a
witting or unwitting tool for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, as an
organisational and ideological resource supported by the International
Muslim Brotherhood and with the primary function of creating trouble for
post-30 June Egypt. There is strong evidence to support this. In the
second half of 2013 dozens of Palestinians affiliated with Hamas’s
Ezzeddin Al-Qassam brigades were apprehended in Sinai and security
forces unearthed large quantities of arms, ammunition and explosives
traced back to the brigades. There is another dimension to this
scenario. It became clear as the Egyptian army dismantled the tunnel
network and tightened border security that the Egyptian authorities were
aware of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hand in the matter. A clear message was
intended: Egypt’s borders are no longer available for anti-Egyptian
propaganda or for activities that undermine Egyptian sovereignty.
Mohamed Gomaa, a researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and
Strategic Studies, explains the second scenario. Hamas, he says,
realised it could not afford to continue to lend itself to the designs
of the first scenario, having concluded it would ultimately backfire,
drawing fire into Gaza which would ignite the political/economic
pressure and lead to a redrawing of the Gazan political map in which
Hamas would be marginalised.
Eliminating terrorism in Sinai entails drying up all sources of arms.
Though the supply is considerably reduced, some still find a way into
the peninsula. There are weapons coming from Sudan where, according to
the prominent political activist Al-Mahjoub Abdel-Salem, the regime is
hostile to the developments in Egypt since 30 June. Egyptian military
expert Gamal Mazloum points another supply line across the Red Sea from
Yemen where Qaeda activities are flourishing.
The largest weapons tributary, however, flows from Libya, currently the
greatest external threat to Egyptian national security due to the
proliferation of extremist groups and a weak central government. Many of
these factions fall under the jihadist Salafist umbrella and have bases
near the Libyan border with Egypt. According to Egyptian security
sources and Libyan affairs expert Ali Saleh, there are four arms
smuggling routes from Libya into Egypt, from the maritime route and an
overland coastal route in the north to two desert routes in the south.
In spite of frequent reports that Cairo and Tripoli are working together
to curb this traffic Egyptian military reports indicate that breaches
of Egypt’s western border continue.
It is not just the weapons from Sudan, Yemen and Libya that flow into
Sinai. Terrorists have also begun to flock to the peninsula in order to
wage holy war. The majority of leaders of the recent wave of armed
assaults have been foreign jihadists, most of them trained in Al-Qaeda
camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They then passed on training to their
local affiliates in Sinai. There are recent arrivals from Syria to,
both Egyptian and foreign. Any effective anti-terrorist programme must
take this into account. Cross border cooperation is required to
dismantle an international terrorist network which, like organised
crime, has tentacles everywhere. The assassination of Major Mohamed Abu
Shaqara, whose whereabouts had been leaked to a terrorist cell, and of
Major Mohamed Mabrouk, who was to be a key prosecution witness in the
espionage case against Mohamed Morsi, both point to the trans-national
nature of this network.
Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis initially claimed responsibility for the
assassination, followed by Furqan Brigades. Both are members of the
Jihadist Shura Council in Sinai. Security experts believe that these
groups are actually covering for others outside Sinai. The backgrounds
of suspects arrested in connection with the assassinations are very
different to those of members of Sinai groups. The suspects come from
wealthy families and had university educations whereas the vast majority
of members of Sinai groups come from poor families and have little more
than elementary school education and sometimes not even that.
The deadliest terrorist attacks in Sinai in 2013 were the second Rafah
massacre in August in which 25 soldiers died and the bombing of an army
bus in November which killed 11 soldiers. These were well organised
operations, terrorist expert Lieutenant Colonel Khaled Okasha told
Al-Ahram Weekly, which underscored the relationship between the
perpetrators in Sinai and the International Muslim Brotherhood. This
International Muslim Brotherhood provides funding and has encouraged the
export of terror outside of Sinai. These exports include the attack
against the church in Warraq, the attempted assassination of Interior
Minister Mohamed Ibrahim in September and the bombing of a satellite
station in Maadi in October.
July, a period of intermittent attacks, was the prelude to a major
confrontation. August and November brought peaks in terrorist attacks
against police and military installations and personnel, October saw a
relative lull in violence. In October and November the army made major
advances in the battle against terrorism, arresting many of Sinai’s
jihadist takfiri leaders.
There has been a qualitative improvement in security for Sinai
residents, says Mohamed Hamad, son of a local Sinai chief. The area from
Beir Al-Abad to Al-Masaid at the entrance to Arish, once a trouble
spot, is safe during the day and relatively safe at night, he says. The
situation becomes more tense the further one moves towards Sheikh Zuweid
and Rafah, where weapons still abound.
Military affairs expert General Talaat Muslim told the Weekly that the
military’s overriding aim in Sinai is to restore security. The army does
not play a political role in the peninsula but is following its
traditional function which is to safeguard and eliminate all threats to
national security. “We are engaged in a military battle and in any
battle there will be losses,” he says. “However, the level of losses has
remained within acceptable limits and is far less than was anticipated
at the outset of operations.”
Members of the Sowarka and Tarabeen tribes complain of tit-for-tat
violence between the army and terrorist groups and its effect on
innocent people. They say homes have been destroyed and civilians
targeted on the basis of a vague suspicions. A distinction must be drawn
between those who practise violence and others, a member of the
Tarabeen tribe told the Weekly. He stressed that harming the innocent
breeds vengeance.
“We do not condemn the army for moving against any terrorist target. In
fact we cooperate with it. But sometimes the situation gets out of
control. Perhaps, too, they should do more to protect people threatened
by the takfiris. Twelve sheikhs from the tribe were killed because they
cooperated with the security agencies. The authorities have ignore this
and not one of their families received compensation,” he says.
“There is security cooperation with neighbouring countries,” said the
same source, “not least Israel. Israel also has agents and cells in
Sinai that are playing a role in events and gathering intelligence in a
very professional way. But we have to keep watch on those who are with
us in case they turn against us. We cannot trust any party. Hamas is
just like Israel in this matter. I am worried about Hamas because it is
the Muslim Brotherhood’s arm playing from the outside while Muslim
Brotherhood elements in Sinai confine themselves, superficially, to a
political role.”
Comprehensive development is the only long term solution to any
resurgence of the terrorist virus. Yet, says Salah Gawdat who has
conducted many economic and technical studies on Sinai, though a third
of a century has passed since Egypt won the peninsula back from Israel,
two regimes have come and gone, a third is currently in power and a
fourth is on its way, the development process has yet to extend beyond
six per cent of the area of Sinai. This is despite the fact that Sinai
contains 48 per cent of Egypt’s mineral wealth. The problem of Sinai’s
underdevelopment could be solved, he says, by a realistic investment
plan and a massive population transfer of around four million people
from the Nile Valley. There would be development of the coastlines and
land reclamation. Agricultural expansion would see an increase in olive
cultivation and the introduction of new strains of wheat. These
activities would change the face of Sinai though for them to happen, the
state as a whole must return to Sinai, not just the army.
Source Al-Ahram Weekly
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