generalspeaking

Egypt's Challenge

The Sinai Peninsula always represented a challenge to Egyptian authorities. Bedouin Salafists were a problem, and slipover from Gaza created violently aggressive situations where Egyptian police and military were often under attack, just as rockets were also launched over the border into Israel. The myriad of tunnels stretching between Egypt and Gaza eased rampant smuggling of arms, fighters and building materials that Israel sought to prevent from entering the Strip, to be used by Islamist terrorists.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak maintained a steady if somewhat sporadic security watch on the Sinai, attempting to damp down the fanatical Islamist activity. When he was removed from power there was a stepping up of the violence directed against Egyptian authority and its agents. With the removal of Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, the real campaign of violence against Egyptian authority began.

It was an open secret that the Muslim Brotherhood held an alliance with the various groups operating violently out of the Sinai. Hamas was hugely relieved to have the Muslim Brotherhood in power, not surprising, since it is an offshoot of the larger, more senior group. Since Morsi's downfall, the Gaza tunnels have been largely destroyed. There were charges that Mohammed Morsi had the unqualified support of Mohammed el-Zawahri, brother of the leader of al-Qaeda.

And it was fairly well accepted that the Brotherhood arranged a pact with the terror groups operating out of the Sinai; part of which was to quell their violence under Brotherhood rule, but the most important was that they could be called upon to come to the aid of the Brotherhood should its authority and primacy ever be challenged.

A group called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis arose in the Sinai Peninsula and their presence is increasingly signalling trouble ahead for the new Egyptian administration. Attacks against the Egyptian police and military have been stepped up and spread to cities of the Nile Delta, including the capital Cairo. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-awahri recently urged Egyptians to fight army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the man instrumental in removing the Brotherhood from power in Egypt.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis "has rapidly become one of the most active jihadist groups in the world", according to the U.S.-based intelligence assessment group Startfor. It noted that the group is receiving "outside help", and likely from the al-Qaeda Yemen branch, al-Aqeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting both in Iraq and Syria. Joining with the group are Egyptian jihadis returning from Syria, steeped in battlefield skills.

They have been given credit for the failed assassination attempt on Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim in September, in Cairo. The suicide bomber was identified as Walid Badr, formerly an Egyptian army major who had fought in Syria's civil war. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis caused true consternation when it shot down a military helicopter in late January killing all five crew members in the Sinai. Signalling it was in possession of far more sophisticated and deadly shoulder-filed missiles.

Only last week the jihadis assassinated a senior interior ministry aide; obviously the work of a skilled sharpshooter who with a single shot through the neck, faultlessly struck his target. Earlier, the group had set up a truck bomb outside Cairo's main security directorate, killing five people through a timed device set to explode during a change in shifts.

Police assaults on protests within the country have killed hundreds of Morsi supporters, while thousands more were arrested some of whom now stand trial, including Morsi himself and much of the leadership of the Brotherhood. The government blames the Brotherhood for the violently militant campaign that has been ongoing since Morsi's removal, incited by the Brotherhood urging its huge dedicated membership to protest in large mass groups, though they've been declared illegal.

^{A riot police officer fires rubber bullets at Morsi supporters in Cairo on Sunday (Reuters)}
 
Officials in the prosecutors' office leaked to the Egyptian press the confessions of Mohammed el-Zawahri who is said to have informed his interrogators that the Brotherhood's deputy leader, Khairat el-Shater, provided him with millions to obtain weapons from Libya for Sinai militants, demanding that they attack the military and government institutions.

In addition to which, they point out, that while in office the Brotherhood had access to police files during the Morsi presidency, passing that information along to jihadis which helped them assassinate security officials. Among them a top Interior Ministry official who investigated the Brotherhood, who was shot to death outside his home late last year.

Morsi is charged with forming a political alliance with fundamentalist radicals. While in the presidency, Morsi sent Islamist delegations to negotiate with Sinai jihadis that he would hold back military operations against them as long as they stopped their attacks against government agents. Finally, before the coup removing Morsi and during the weeks after, top leaders of past militant movements made their appearance on stage at Brotherhood-sponsored rallies.

Rifal Taha was among them, a man once aligned with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. And two brothers as well, Tareq and Abboud el-Zomer, who had masterminded the assassination of foreign Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 in a demonstration of their admiration for his having visitied Israel and amazing the entire Middle East by being the first of only two Arab nations to sign a peace treaty with the State of Israel.

Labels: Conflict, Egypt, Jihadists, Muslim Brotherhood, Salafism, Sinai

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 08, 2014