Egypt has
been battling with Sinai-based terrorists ever since the overthrow in 2013 of
former president Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood government that he
headed.
Their
year in office demonstrated all too clearly to the majority of the Egyptian
population what living under an extreme Islamist administration meant, and by
and large they rejected it. Even so, the Muslim Brotherhood retained the
support of a fair minority of Egyptians, and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, later to be
president, inherited an inherently unstable situation which, he believed, could
only be contained by suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood and all its works. Hence the trial of Morsi, the clampdown on
leading Brotherhood figures and its adherents, and the jailing of journalists
employed by the TV station Al-Jazeera based in Qatar, which supported the
Muslim Brotherhood.
As Sisi’s
clampdown grew in severity, prominent Brotherhood figures fled the country,
while existing Islamist bodies in Sinai affiliated either to al-Qaeda or
Islamic State were joined by new extremist terror groups. The Sinai Peninsula,
vast and sparsely populated, was the ideal launching pad for pro-Brotherhood
bodies intent on harassing Egypt’s new administration.
But the eastern edge of the Sinai Peninsula
delineates the internationally recognized 213 kilometer (132 mile) border
between Egypt and Israel. Military action by either nation in the region is
subject to a delicate balance set out in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of
1979. On the one hand the agreement imposes
strict limitations on Egyptian military deployment; on the other, any Israeli
incursion into the Peninsula requires Egypt's permission.
Ever since the jihadist groups
stepped up their terror attacks in the Sinai, Israel has given its approval to
Egypt’s greatly enhanced military presence. Equally, as reports like that in
the New York Times on February 4, 2018 assert, Egypt has been approving Israeli
air strikes – more than 100 of them over the past two years − against Islamic
State targets in northern Sinai. That suggestion was vehemently denied by Egypt’s military spokesperson Tamer El-Refaai. The Egyptian army, he asserted, was the sole
entity conducting military operations in North Sinai.
Although at least six other
extremist Islamist groupings have been identified in the region, most of the
attacks in the Sinai Peninsula in recent years have been claimed by
Sinai Province, the Egyptian affiliate of Islamic State. The group has never
claimed responsibility for what has been described as the “deadliest militant
attack in modern Egyptian history”, but all the evidence points to it. It was this atrocity that has led to the
intensive military effort just launched by the combined Egyptian military
forces.
In the midst of Friday prayers on
November 24, 2017, militants launched a bomb and gun attack on the al-Rawda mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed, in Egypt's North Sinai province.
311 people were killed, including 27 children, and at least 122 other people
were wounded. When ambulances arrived to transport the wounded to
hospitals, the attackers opened fire on them as well, from pre- selected ambush
points.
Immediately
after the attack Sisi declared three days of national mourning and ordered
his armed forces to mount a full-scale military operation aimed at defeating
the Sinai-based militants within three months.
It took some eight weeks to plan the campaign. On February 16 the operation, named Sinai 2018, began.
Involving the army, navy, air force and police, it is targeting "terrorist
and criminal elements and organizations" in north and central Sinai, parts
of the Nile delta and the western desert.
According to Egypt’s Colonel Tamer
al-Rifai in a news conference broadcast on state television, forces have so far
destroyed over 1,000 kg of explosives, 378 militant hideouts, and weapon
storage facilities including a media center used by the militants. Some 680
people have been detained. The air force has carried out more than 100
airstrikes in northern and central Sinai, focusing on militant hideouts outside
residential areas to avoid hitting civilians.
Major General Yasser Abdel Aziz of
Egypt’s Military Operations Authority said that the operation would only end
when Sinai was free of "terrorists".
When this happy state of affairs had been achieved, he said, Egyptian
authorities would push ahead with a comprehensive development plan for Sinai.
Sinai 2018 started just a couple
of days before US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Cairo. For several
years now, American commanders have provided intelligence assistance to Egyptian
commanders in Sinai including reconnaissance imagery, intelligence gleaned from
eavesdropping devices, and other information from sophisticated sensors. In addition, ever since 2015 there have been
reports of Egypt working closely with Israel in Sinai, and of Israeli drones,
helicopters and jets carrying out dozens of attacks in the region.
Neither Egypt nor Israel is
acknowledging their growing cooperation as they face a common foe − a jihadist
insurgency in the Sinai. Their relationship mirrors that between Jordan and
Israel − security cooperation, but as far from the public eye as possible. Nothing, however, can disguise the $15 billion natural gas deal just struck under which the operators of
Israel’s vast Tamar and Leviathan fields will be selling some 64 billion cubic
meters of gas to Egypt over ten years – an agreement mirroring Israel’s 2016
gas deal with Jordan worth some $10 billion.
Today’s political and commercial realities are overriding the outworn imperatives
of yesteryear.
Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line, 25 February 2018:
http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/A-Mid-East-Journal/Sisis-Islamist-enemies-and-secret-friends-543545
Published in the Eurasia Review, 25 February 2018:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/26022018-sisis-islamist-enemies-and-secret-friends-oped/
Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line, 25 February 2018:
http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/A-Mid-East-Journal/Sisis-Islamist-enemies-and-secret-friends-543545
Published in the Eurasia Review, 25 February 2018:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/26022018-sisis-islamist-enemies-and-secret-friends-oped/
Published in the MPC Journal, 5 March 2018:
http://mpc-journal.org/blog/2018/03/05/sisis-islamist-enemies-and-secret-friends/
No comments:
Post a Comment