The northeastern Sinai Peninsula has seen almost daily attacks on security personnel since the Jul. 3 ouster of president Mohamed Morsi. Credit: Adam Morrow/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Oct 12 2013 (IPS)

A period of more than three months since former president Mohamed Morsi’s ouster by Egypt’s powerful military establishment have been marked by almost daily attacks on Egyptian security personnel, especially in the restive Sinai Peninsula. The identity of the attackers remains a mystery.

“The armed groups carrying out the Sinai attacks aren’t drawn from local families and tribes,” Sinai-based journalist Hatem al-Bulk told IPS. “Often masked, they strike their targets and vanish into the mountains.”

“The local people,” he added, “have no idea who they are.”

On Oct. 7, three police officers were killed and dozens injured when a car bomb went off near South Sinai’s regional security directorate."Along with militant Islamist groups, there are those who have an interest in maintaining Sinai's longstanding position as a major arms- and drug-smuggling route."

Six soldiers were killed the same day in a drive-by shooting near the Suez Canal, while a major government satellite transmitter was damaged by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) in southern Cairo – the first attack of its kind to be seen in the capital.

The rising tempo of violence comes amid unprecedented polarisation among the Egyptian public over the issue of Morsi’s Jul. 3 ouster. Monday’s string of attacks came one day after more than 50 pro-Morsi demonstrators were killed by security forces in different parts of the country.

After only one year in office, Morsi – Egypt’s first freely elected head of state – was removed from his post and arrested by the military following massive and well-coordinated demonstrations against his presidency. He continues to be held at an undisclosed location by Egypt’s new military-backed rulers.

Morsi’s opponents call his ouster a “second revolution” along the lines of Egypt’s January 2011 uprising, which ended the 30-year-rule of autocratic president Hosni Mubarak. Morsi’s supporters call it a “military coup” against a democratically elected president; a counter-revolution waged by Mubarak’s “deep state”.

The more than three months since Morsi’s removal have witnessed daily demonstrations nationwide, which have remained largely peaceful in nature, demanding the deposed leader’s reinstatement. They have also, however, seen increasingly frequent attacks on security personnel – both police and military – by unknown assailants.

In mid-August, 25 policemen were reportedly killed in a single attack in North Sinai. The incident came five days after hundreds of demonstrators were gunned down when security forces violently dispersed a pro-Morsi sit-in in Cairo.

Until now, the violence in Sinai has been confined to the peninsula’s north-eastern quadrant, near Egypt’s borders with Israel and the Gaza Strip. Monday’s brazen attack on the security directorate was the first such attack in South Sinai.

The violence has prompted Egypt’s military to launch a peninsula-wide operation with the ostensible aim of stamping out “militancy”. Egyptian media, both state-run and private, has heavily promoted the army campaign, portraying it as a U.S.-style “war on terrorism”.

Within recent weeks, the military has demolished numerous homes in north-eastern Sinai, claiming they belonged to militant leaders; almost entirely destroyed the network of tunnels linking Egypt to the besieged Gaza Strip; and killed scores of what it calls “militants and criminal elements.”

Army spokesmen, meanwhile, say that more than 100 security personnel have been killed in the on-going operation.

No groups have claimed responsibility for the attacks, with a few recent exceptions (including the South Sinai attack, which was claimed by an obscure Sinai-based group called ‘Ansar Beit al-Maqdis’).

Egypt’s military-backed authorities say they are the work of “terrorists” with links to the Muslim Brotherhood – the group from which Morsi hails. Since Morsi’s overthrow, hundreds of the Brotherhood’s high- and mid-ranking members have been detained on charges of “inciting violence”.

The Brotherhood, for its part, denies any connection to the violence in Sinai, saying it is committed to peaceful protest with the aim of restoring “constitutional legitimacy”.

Al-Bulk, who is based in the North Sinai city of Al-Arish, says the Sinai-based militants behind the attacks number no more than a couple thousand in total.

“They don’t have a unified leadership,” he said, “nor are they known by a single name.”

According to al-Bulk, Morsi had tried to “come to terms” with some of these groups during his one year in office.

“In return for halting attacks on security personnel and Egypt’s natural gas pipelines, they were given relative freedom of movement,” he said. But he ruled out allegations that the Brotherhood either supported or financed such groups.

Nor does al-Bulk dismiss the possibility that “at least some of these groups are controlled – or at least influenced – by foreign intelligence agencies with interests in Sinai.”

Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is inhabited largely by Bedouin tribes who have traditionally had an uneasy relationship with the central government in Cairo. The last decade of the Mubarak era had been marked by occasional attacks on the peninsula – also by “unidentified elements” – typically followed by the arbitrary arrest of thousands of local men.

Seif Abdel-Fattah, a Cairo University political science professor and former Morsi aide (he resigned from the post last November), pointed to “several parties” with an interest in escalating violence in Sinai.

“Along with militant Islamist groups, there are those who have an interest in maintaining Sinai’s longstanding position as a major arms- and drug-smuggling route,” he told IPS, “not to mention other criminal elements.”

All these groups were prepared to use violence, he added, including attacks on security forces, “when it suits their purpose.”

Abdel-Fattah, too, dismissed the likelihood of direct links between the embattled Muslim Brotherhood and events in Sinai.

“It’s a matter of action, reaction and counter-reaction,” he said. “Every time security forces tighten the noose on these Sinai-based militant groups, they respond by delivering a powerful blow.”

On Wednesday (Oct. 9), a senior army commander – along with three soldiers – was injured in an attack in central Sinai. The same day also saw a handful of attacks elsewhere on the peninsula.

Abdel-Fattah partially attributes Sinai’s ongoing lawlessness to “the regional security vacuum” created by the terms of Egypt’s 1978 Camp David peace agreement with Israel.

Under the treaty’s terms, Egypt can’t make any major military deployments in Sinai without prior Israeli authorisation. Therefore, until the recent military campaign (to which Israel has given its tacit support), the peninsula had remained largely devoid of an effective security presence.

In August, an apparent Israeli drone strike in North Sinai prompted intense speculation about stepped-up Egypt-Israel security coordination.

“Camp David stipulates a degree of [Egypt-Israel] security cooperation in Sinai,” said al-Bulk. “That coordination was maintained under Mubarak, went on under Morsi, and continues now under Egypt’s new military-backed government.”

Sinai militia carrying al-Qaeda flags head for a funeral of killed militants. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS.

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, Aug 17 2013 (IPS)

The violence in Cairo came amidst firm indications that Muslim Brotherhood members hit back after a brutal crackdown this week that left many hundreds dead. And the winds of retaliation have blowing in from the Sinai peninsula, the desert to the east.

Sinai has witnessed daily attacks on police stations and security checkpoints since the overthrow of Morsi Jul. 3 in response. The attacks have come amidst mass protests demanding his release from detention and reinstatement as president.

The crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo, that left the world shocked over its extent and brutality, was certain to provoke reactions – such as those that Cairo saw at several places on Friday. What is emerging are both the militant and peaceful sides to Muslim Brotherood opposition to the military regime that overthrew Morsi."As long as the military coup stays, more blood and violence will continue."

The militant front has been rising in the east. Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Al Beltagy made clear statements to suggest that violence in the Sinai would end only with the reinstatement of Morsi.

Ibrahim el Mini’ai, head of the Sinai tribes union said that military head General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi is ultimately responsible for attacks on the army and police in Sinai. “Al Sisi is responsible for what Egypt suffers now from such violence, after killing peaceful demonstrators just because they were supporting legitimacy,” he said.

El-Mini’ai said Islamists in Sinai were resorting to lethal attacks because the revolution has ended and the old Hosni Mubarak regime is gradually returning. “Jihadi militants are now ready for blood sacrifice in order to apply the Islamic Shari’a, even if they have to call for foreign powers, whatever they are.”

El-Mini’ai, who is known with his strong connections with armed groups in Sinai added that “as long as the military coup stays, more blood and violence will continue.”

The brutal policies of the present regime, he said, are eliminating moderate political parties. “Only the extremists will keep going.”

In Sinai, Jihadi salafists were evidently provoked after four members of the Ansar Beit al-Maqdes linked to al-Qaeda in Sinai were killed by the military Aug. 9.

According to Egyptian officials 31 people including 10 civilians and 21 policemen and army officers were killed in militant attacks in Sinai in July. In all 157 were reported injured.

Army spokesperson Colonel Ahmed Ali told IPS that the attacks in Sinai increased after the deposition of the previous president because the political regime under Morsi refused action against radical militias in Sinai. The Morsi regime also released many radical elements involved in terrorist attacks against the Egyptian state, he said.

“The ousted president strongly enforced such militant groups and used them against state institutions,” Ali told IPS.

“There is a direct relation between the Muslim Brotherhood and such terrorist groups in Sinai as per what Mohamed al-Beltagy said. The attacks on the army and police in Sinai will stop as soon as Morsi is reinstated as president.”

He added that there are an estimated 1,000 Jihadi militants in Sinai.

Ibrahim Suliman, a salafist who is a fugitive from the death penalty, told IPS: “We will not stop the violence in the Sinai before the crisis is resolved in Cairo between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military in a political manner. If the police continue to kill Morsi supporters, this will turn Sinai into a battleground. If the military commanders do not find a solution, the whole of Egypt will be in ruins.”

Ayman Moussa “Abu Talha”, a salafist jihadi militia leader told IPS that the army leaders and the current regime had turned unlawfully against a legitimate president, and that Morsi must be brought back to the power at any cost.

“The majority in Sinai would want to apply an Islamic caliphate state of governance and consider killing for the sake of this end as a jihad,” he told IPS.

Abu Talha said that the military alliance with Israel and the Palestinian Fatah is being used against the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Hamas in Gaza.