Countering Terror Infiltration in Egypt
"The Egyptian Army is not interested in pursuing urban warfare. Instead, they respond to militant attacks using tanks and helicopter gunships, against targets in the Sinai where it is quite difficult to identify individual militants blended into the local population."
"It’s going to wind up being counterproductive in the long term. You can’t bulldoze an area, home by home, and persuade people to work with you."Aaron Reese, deputy research director, Institute for the Study of War, Washington"To throw ten thousand people into the street in a second, this is the biggest threat to national security."Ayman Mohsen, Egypt"The tunnels to me are like windows that for years my neighbours have used to infiltrate my house. The tunnels led us into this hellish situation."Mona Barhomaa, El-Arish, Egypt
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Her home located 800 metres from the border, unaffected by the evacuation order, the woman is in full support of the Cairo-ordered demolitions. The tunnels often lead directly to and from some of the homes. Their utility to Hamas in Gaza represents the opportunity to smuggle fighters, arms and ammunition from one end to the other. The Sinai has been overrun by Bedouin Salafists, Hamas and Islamic Jihad militias and more latterly al-Qaeda-affiliated militias, all supported and encouraged by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt has been in conflict with them all. The ongoing attacks of the last decade by the Islamists against border police stations and military units has infuriated Cairo. The Muslim Brotherhood has been named as the main instigator of those deadly attacks, which had levelled off when Mohammad Morsi was in power as president, then revived with a vengeance when the Muslim Brotherhood found itself declared a terrorist organization by Egypt's new president.
President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, moved to action by the last assault that killed 33 Egyptian military, has vowed to extend firm security authority throughout all of Egypt. Even Cairo hasn't been exempt from Brotherhood-inspired assaults. He ordered local authorities in the Sinai to expeditiously give compensation to those living within the recently-stated 12-kilometre buffer zone, 500 metres in width, who agreed to leave voluntarily.
"Egypt will never forget its honourable people of Sinai, their well-documented patriotic stances and their sacrifices to the nation", he stated, in a conciliatory effort to defuse anger. "Our house in Rafah is more than 60 years old", wrote Hammam Alagha on Twitter. His family's eviction one of thousands. An army officer ordered the family to vacate their home, Mr. Alagha refused, and the officer stated "Tomorrow we will bomb it with everything in it."
"People are in a state of shock but helpless", Ahmed Aetaa said of his situation and that of his friends being forced to leave their Rafah homes. It is the short notice in particular that has led to their state of trauma, let alone the poor organizational reality augmented by a hostile media campaign where television commentators equated opposition to the clearing-out move with treason.
The buffer zone has long been bruited about, a necessary move to deter militants and smugglers from turning the Sinai into a conflict free-for-all. The speed with which bulldozers and dynamite appeared on the scene, to destroy dozens of homes along the border with the Gaza Strip horrified residents. The plan calling for the destruction of 800 homes to move ten thousand people in a matter of a few days, took them all off guard.
The Egyptian government is facing a crisis of proportions difficult to gain the upper hand with. The Muslim Brotherhood is using all means at its disposal to fight back at the rejection and unseating of their time in power, all too brief in their estimation, having envisioned that they had finally, after 80 years of existence, planning and agitation, reached the pinnacle of their aspirations only to have it yanked away.
The government's desperation to have it all behind them, to focus on security and advantages that it will bring on the economic front, has led to the perhaps-inevitable counterinsurgency tactic, as a needful, though harsh tactic to succeed in overcoming the threat of violent Islamism personified by the Brotherhood, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda.
Labels: Al-Qaeda, Conflict, Egypt, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Security
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, November 01, 2014
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