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EGYPT: Sinai Simmers in Security Vacuum

Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Aug 17 2011 (IPS) - Even before the recent revolution, Egypt’s strategic Sinai Peninsula – inhabited mostly by restive Bedouin tribesmen – had a reputation for lawlessness. But in the months since the popular uprising that led to Mubarak’s February ouster, the situation in Sinai appears more precarious than ever.

“Sinai is suffering from a serious security vacuum,” Hatem al-Bulk, an Egyptian journalist based in the north-eastern Sinai city of Al-Arish, told IPS. “Along with being partially demilitarised according to the terms of the Camp David agreement, Sinai has also been largely devoid of police since the revolution.”

On Aug. 12 and 13, Egypt’s ruling military council, which has governed the country since Mubarak’s removal, dispatched over 2,000 police and soldiers to north-eastern Sinai with the stated aim of “deterring acts of sabotage and protecting local residents.” The deployment followed two recent acts of violence in the area.

On Jul. 29, more than 100 masked gunmen attacked a police station in Al-Arish (some 270 kilometres northeast of Cairo), killing six – including a police officer and an army officer – and injuring 21. Before dawn the next morning, some 15 kilometres away, the pipeline that pumps Egyptian natural gas to Israel and Jordan was also attacked – for the fifth time since February – most likely by elements of the same group.

The terms of the 1979 Camp David peace agreement between Egypt and Israel set tight restrictions on Egyptian military deployments throughout the peninsula. The arrangement has made Sinai’s entire eastern frontier, including its borders with Israel and the Gaza Strip, a de facto demilitarised zone.

With perhaps Camp David in mind, North Sinai Governor Abdel-Wahab Mabrouk was quick to stress that the recent military deployment – which reportedly included tanks and armoured vehicles – was for “defensive purposes only.” On Sunday (Aug 14), Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Israeli officials had “approved the operation.”

Sinai has been largely free of local law enforcement since Jan. 28, when – at the height the revolution – the embattled Mubarak regime ordered a countrywide withdrawal of all police forces. While the army quickly stepped in to fill the breach, it was unable – due to the terms of the peace treaty – to do so in Sinai.

“On January 28, the army was deployed in every province of Egypt except for the Sinai Peninsula,” said al-Bulk.

Three days after the police withdrawal, Israel agreed to let Egypt dispatch 800 soldiers to the peninsula – the largest Egyptian military deployment in Sinai since 1979 – but turned down requests for additional reinforcements.

“Once police were pulled out, even Israel recognised the dangers of the looming security void across its border,” Tarek Fahmi, director of the Israeli desk at the Cairo-based National Centre for Middle East Studies, told IPS. “But, as the recent attacks confirm, 800 soldiers simply aren’t sufficient to establish security in the area.”

More than six months after the revolution, police personnel have yet to return to the area in force.

Meanwhile, the nomadic Bedouin tribesmen that account for most of Sinai’s population – who have long complained of economic marginalisation – continue to have a less-than-cordial relationship with the central government.

“The Mubarak regime utterly failed to develop Sinai, in terms of both industry and agriculture, which led to deep feelings of marginalisation among the Bedouin,” said Fahmi. “And Egypt’s post-revolutionary government still hasn’t done enough to placate this longstanding resentment.”

Making matters worse, thousands of tribesmen were arbitrarily arrested following a string of still- unsolved bombings at Sinai resort sites from 2004 to 2006. Hundreds remain in prison today, while hundreds more have been slapped in absentia with stiff jail sentences.

“The current government (appointed by the ruling military council) has repeatedly promised to release Bedouin detainees held without charge and cancel in-absentia jail sentences, but has dragged its feet on implementation,” said Fahmi. “Large swathes of Sinai’s inhabitants, therefore, continue to nurse longstanding grievances.”

While the local and international media has been quick to attribute the recent violence in Sinai to militant Islamist groups – including the previously unheard of ‘Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula’ – al- Bulk, who witnessed the police station attack, dismissed the notion.

“The attackers were mostly disaffected Bedouin, thugs and smugglers – along, perhaps, with a handful of misguided religious extremists – who don’t want to see the police come back to Sinai,” he said. He added that several of the perpetrators had been “known by name” among local residents of Al-Arish.

“They have no relationship with militant Islamist groups, including ‘Al-Qaeda’, none of which have ever had a major presence in Sinai,” al-Bulk stressed. “The former regime used to claim that these groups were active in the peninsula in order to justify frequent security clampdowns and prolong the emergency law.”

Sheikh Hasan al-Khilfat, a headman of northern Sinai’s Al-Sewarka tribe, blasted the media for “wildly exaggerating” the presence of militant Islamist groups in the area.

“Some of these groups might have a limited presence in Sinai, but not nearly to the extent that is being reported by the media,” he was quoted as saying by independent daily Al-Shorouk on Monday (Aug. 15). The “extremist ideas” espoused by such groups, al-Khilfat added, “go entirely against the grain of Sinai’s tribal customs and social norms.”

Al-Bulk, for his part, put the total number of those in Sinai who might be described as “Islamic militants” at “no more than two or three hundred throughout the entire peninsula.”

Fahmi, too, agreed that their numbers did not exceed a couple hundred at most, stressing that “the media is exaggerating both their numbers in Sinai and their alleged association with al-Qaeda.”

He went on to warn that the recent military deployment would not be sufficient to curb mounting insecurity in the unruly peninsula.

“Until the government makes good on its promises to the Bedouin and begins to satisfactorily develop the region, unrest will remain endemic to Sinai,” Fahmi said.