ABAM or ABM? IRRELEVANT.

By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, February 20^th 2014.

If studying the long history of War On Terrorism and Guerrilla Warfare has demonstrated anything whatsoever, that is having furnished us with many irrevocable proofs on one simple rule fundamental to determine the exit of these types of conflict:

“If you allow your opponent larger time span than necessary to fight, he will adapt his tactics to your techniques; thus will bleed your energies till exhaustion”.

“Ansar Beit Al Maqdis” (aka ABAM and not ABM as echoed by media) are doing exactly that.. They are forcing our Police Special forces, together with the Armed Forces Anti-Terrorist Corp, into a long term armed confrontation to dictate the terms of the battle turning it into the most exhausting conflict possible; and to provoke a dangerous resources haemorrhage to drain out much of the nation’s physical, cultural and moral energies.

These groups have learned well the Syrian lesson.. They know for certain that neither the Armed Forces nor the Police will risk adventuring into the slippery grounds of a full scale war; so they will continue their “Hit & Run / Hide & Seek” type attacks, as long as their opponent would permit them to do so.

The problem is that they are just like Organised Crime Cells: they are resourceful, well infiltrated, they are unscrupulous, they are more agile, they move faster, and they communicate efficiently. While the Police and Army forces are handcuffed by rules, norms, laws, politics, media, and most of all by the Public Opinion that will never forgive them if they’d lose patience and slide into what may turn into a bloody Civil War.. Which is precisely the aim of ABAM, and obviously that of their sponsors; to systematically and constantly control one piece of territory at a time.. Piece over another become a city, a region, a governorate and so on.

And in every step along that way, they’d establish their rules, their laws and by their terror.. Same scenario used in Afghanistan by the Taliban gangs, in Lebanon by Hezb’Allah, in Gaza by Hamas, and now in Syria where the radical Islamist groups, have seized a firm grip controlling the North of the country, have issued an ultimatum to women: The Veil Or Else.

On January 26, 2014; David Barnett, a research associate at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, published a study for the Conference on Foreign Relations (CFR) questioning the Egyptian case. In the course of that analysis he wrote:

“Cairo’s current approach, in other words, may not be properly addressing the serious jihadist threat to Egypt that was once clearly limited to the Sinai Peninsula, but has now reached across the Suez Canal. Recent admissions by Egyptian officials indicate that Sinai jihadists have been avoiding security sweeps and reaching the Nile Delta and Cairo, among other locations. This, along with Friday’s attacks, raises serious questions as to whether enough resources are being deployed to deal with Egypt’s growing jihadist problem, particularly as these forces display an ability to adapt to ongoing Egyptian military operations”.

Pass On The Word.