By: Ahmed ELNAHAS – Montopoli, February 28th 2014.
On February 14th
2014, Mr. Hasib J. Sabbagh,
a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations,
appeared in a special hearing before the Subcommittee
on Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the United States House of Representatives 2nd Session, 113th Congress; to deliver his
assessment on “Al Qaeda’s Expansion in Egypt: Implications for U.S. Homeland Security”.
Here follow some passages of his statement.
Since the
July 3, 2013 coup d’étât, there have been at least 22 terrorist attacks in the
Sinai and a series of attacks in major population centers in the Nile Valley,
including Ismailiyya, Mansoura, the Sharqiya governorate, and Cairo. A group
called Ansar Bayt at Maqdis
(Supporters of
Jerusalem) have taken responsibility for most of the attacks,
but other groups including the previously unknown Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt) and Jund al
Islam (Soldiers of Islam) have also targeted the Egyptian state and security
forces. Most ominously, in late July and again in early September, an extremist
organization called Al-Furqan
Brigade
fired on cargo ships in the Suez Canal with rocket propelled grenades, though
no damage was reported.
The security problems there have become deeply
worrisome. It is important to note that it is the scale of violence that is
new, not the problem of terrorism nor its cause. Egypt is in many ways a
crucible of transnational jihad and has produced a long list of notorious
terrorists. For at least a decade before the January 2011 uprising, Israeli and
American officials raised concerns to their Egyptian counterparts over the drug
trade, the flow of weapons, human trafficking, and the presence of various
extremist groups in the Sinai. There is no evidence that then-president Mubarak
took American and Israeli disquiet seriously, but even if he had, there were
important political and structural impediments that would have prevented him
from taking any effective action.
Ø First,
the leadership in Cairo was not inclined politically to address to grievances
of the population of northern Sinai, whether they be related to the lack of
economic opportunity and development or to the poor treatment of the population
at the hands of the Ministry of Interior. Although the Sinai is critical to a
set of national myths related to past conflicts with Israel and national
redemption, the area has not been incorporated into the political and economic
life of the country. Given this neglect and the cultural differences between
the largely Bedouin population of the Sinai and other parts of the country,
residents of the Sinai do not feel Egyptian. To be fair, this situation is not
necessarily unique to the Sinai. The same can be said of residents who live in
the Nile Valley who also feel disconnected from the far-flung capital and its
leaders who care little about developments outside the major population
centers.
Ø Second, Egyptian-Israeli security coordination was not
as robust in the late 1990s and 2000s as it is now. During the mid-2000s, for
example, there was considerable mistrust between the two security
establishments in addition to thinly veiled Egyptian anger over the efforts of
Israel and its U.S.-based supporters to draw attention to Cairo’s lackluster
approach to the problem of underground smuggling from the Egyptian frontier to
the Gaza Strip.
Ø
Third, and most
importantly, the primary state organizations that were (and remain) responsible
for the Sinai—the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, and the
General Intelligence Service (GIS)—have maintained different views on how to deal with problems there,
have distinct missions, and are in competition with each other. Due to
restrictions built into the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the armed forces were
only permitted in certain locations in the Sinai and only with certain
pre-determined types of weapons. As a result, stability in the Sinai was
largely left to the Ministry of Interior, which, as alluded to above, pursued
its police functions with zeal and little regard for due process or human
rights. For its part, the GIS was less interested in the quiescence of the
population than it was in running intelligence operations in the Sinai. The
inevitable result was the development of an environment conducive to crime,
extremism, and violence.
After the
uprising, the Ministry of Interior was badly battered and the Ministry of
Defense was consumed with running the country. This almost immediately resulted
in the deterioration of the security situation in northern Sinai. Attacks on
police stations, bombings of the Trans-Arab and the al Arish-Ashkelon pipelines,
kidnapping of security personnel, efforts to infiltrate Israel, and brazen
attacks on state facilities in the region’s capital al Arish all became
frequent. Military operations during the summer of 2011 and 2012 did little to
arrest this instability and violence. It is not accurate to suggest, as many in
the media have, that the Sinai Peninsula is “lawless.” There are informal legal
institutions in the Sinai: Sharia courts are now taking the place of the tribal
‘Urf court system, which the government under Mubarak was widely believed to
have infiltrated. The spread of Sharia courts has become a way to propagate and
institutionalize extremist ideologies and worldviews.
The
evidence suggests that the violence in the Sinai Peninsula is largely an Egyptian
affair. The Sinai may yet attract foreign jihadis, but thus far the Sinai has
enticed Egyptians nationals who had been fighting in Syria and Iraq to return
home in order to wage war against what they believe to be an illegitimate
government. Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian leader of al Qaeda, has offered his
support to Ansar Bayt al Maqdis and has encouraged Egyptians to take up
arms against the state. There is currently a debate in Washington about
Zawahiri and the extent of his control over al Qaeda and its affiliates, but it
seems clear that he maintain influence among Egyptian jihadists.
This
worrying situation of political uncertainty, economic deterioration, and
extremist violence; this instability poses a threat to American national
security interests including:
a) navigation
of the Suez Canal,
b) providing
logistical support to U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf,
c) overflight
rights, and
d) the
preservation of Egypt-Israel peace.
Nevertheless,
the question remains however: “how the United States can best help Egypt?”.
Washington
should speak out forcefully and clearly against, for example, human rights
violations, attacks on press freedoms, and policies that contradict the rule of
law; but policymakers must understand that this is unlikely to have a decisive
effect on the quality of Egyptian politics.
Some
observers have advocated suspending, delaying, or outright cutting U.S.
military assistance to punish the military for the July 3 coup and to compel
the officers to put Egypt on a democratic path. It is hard to understand how
such a policy would advance democratic change or help improve Egypt’s security
situation. The Obama administration has already withheld important weapons
systems from the Egyptians, including F-16s and Apache helicopters in response
to the military’s intervention, but this has not had a salutatory effect on
Egyptian politics.
Critics
also argue that U.S. support for the military will further destabilize Egypt,
reasoning that the officers’ harsh crackdown is contributing to polarization
and violence. This “repression-radicalization dynamic” is real, but whether the
United States provides assistance or not, the military and the Ministry of
Interior seem likely to continue to try to establish political control through
coercion and violence. Withdrawing American support will not make Egypt less
unstable
The
United States has obvious security interests in Egypt that virtually all
observers agree remain important in the short-run. The Egyptians have come to
terms with the fact that they are likely to be battling extremists in the Sinai
Peninsula for the near future. The Ministry of Defense is not always amenable
to American advice because they fear that the United States wants to transform
the military into a gendarmerie.
If the
most optimistic assistance programmes whatsoever would be adopted, it cannot
provide an immediate solution to this situation, unless first the Egyptians
must break out of their outdated conception of security and rethink their
doctrine to respond to the very real threats before them. This
is where the United States can be most helpful, but to be successful, American
policymakers will need to:
1. reassure
Egyptian officers that Washington stands with them in the fight against
terrorism and extremism;
2. the
administration and the Congress should give the Egyptian military the tools and
technology it needs to counter extremist violence;
3. release
suspended weapons systems, especially the Apache helicopters;
4. establish
a standing group of American and Egyptian officers to coordinate assistance
coherently; and
5.
develop a trilateral American-Egyptian-Israeli
security/intelligence/counter-terrorism mechanism that facilitates the flow of
information among the security establishments of all three countries.
That’s
about all there is in Mr. SABBAGH’s speech. Yet it should be noted that:
The now Field Marshall Al Sissi, and before
his appointment as Minister of Defence & Military Production, was for a
long time the top agent responsible for running the Military Intelligence
activities in Northern Sinai under Tantawi and Mubarak; and among his major job
tasks were:
a)
coordinating with Israeli counterparts
regarding issues like smuggling arms, food, medicines, gas.. etc; and
b)
exchange intelligence plans on jihadist
activists infiltrations into the peninsula.
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