The scale of the bloodshed was
vastly higher than past militant attacks but the Egyptian government
response the same: Three days of mourning, reassuring messages in the
media that things are under control, and the president promising
vengeance.
The identical pattern in the aftermath of Friday's
attack on a mosque in Sinai, which killed over 300 people, raises the
question: Does Egypt have options left?
The military has thrown tanks, fighting vehicles,
fighter-jets, warships and helicopter gunships along with tens of
thousands of security forces in three years of conflict with extremists,
including an affiliate of the Islamic State group in the northern part
of the Sinai Peninsula.
The area has been under emergency law for several
years and the entire country since April. Security forces have forcibly
evacuated areas adjacent to the border with Gaza, razing residents'
houses and farmlands. They have blown up underground tunnels that
authorities believe jihadis used to smuggle weapons and fighters in from
neighboring Gaza, ruled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
These measures have shown few tangible results.
The firepower and troop deployments in Sinai have
kept militants from holding territory but have not prevented them from
carrying out assassinations that terrorize the population and launching
deadly attacks on military and police posts and convoys and recently a
daylight robbery in Sinai's largest town.
In a televised address, a livid Abdel-Fattah
el-Sissi, Egypt's general-turned-president, pledged the use of "brute
force" in response to Friday's attack. "The armed forces and police will
forcefully take revenge for our martyred sons and restore security and
stability in the short period ahead," he vowed.
There is little public discussion of how to conduct
the war and northern Sinai area is closed off to journalists, making it
difficult to assess what's going on. In the overwhelmingly
pro-government media, talk about the conflict is largely focused on
cheering the military and police, commemorating their "martyrs" and
urging the public to rally around el-Sissi.
The closest authorities came to admitting
shortcomings was last month when el-Sissi removed the armed forces'
chief of staff and top police generals after a planned attack on
militants in the Western Desert went disastrously wrong. The operation
left over a dozen counterterrorism police officers dead and exposed
poor coordination among security and intelligence agencies.
It also illustrated the problem posed by Egypt's long
desert border with Libya — a country mired in chaos and rife with armed
Islamic militant groups — through which weapons and fighters can be
smuggled. That has fueled a second front of militant violence in the
west, with signs of arms movements to the Sinai extremists.
Egypt's response has been in line with a
longstanding model of fighting a conventional war against an opposing
army. Indeed, recent years have seen up to $15 billion in arms deals,
largely for big-ticket items such as two helicopter carriers,
submarines, assault helicopters and fighter jets.
But critics have called for a
counterterrorism strategy in Sinai rather than the reliance on a
conventional deployment of overwhelming force. There are some trained
counterterrorism soldiers and police deployed, but most are poorly
trained regular troops and police conscripts whose main skill is manning
a checkpoint. Warplanes and attack helicopters have limits in a rugged
mountain terrain that the militants know far better than the military
does. And forces moving with tanks and heavy vehicles are often ambushed
by the more agile militants using light arms, machine guns, roadside
bombs and suicide bombers.
El-Sissi recently said security forces are
hampered by the presence of civilians in Sinai, requiring extreme
caution which benefits the insurgents. But critics say the military has
been heavy-handed as is, deepening the distrust of local tribes who have
long claimed discrimination.
Male family members are sometimes arrested if
another member is suspected of militancy, according to Sinai rights
activists. Soldiers and police at checkpoints are notorious for
mistreating people, they say. Roads are often blocked and mobile phone
services disrupted. Houses have been razed to clear zones for military
control and people forcibly evacuated. Even those who oppose the
militants become less likely to help security forces.
At the same time, the militants brutally
intimidate residents from cooperating with security forces, kidnapping
suspected collaborators and dumping their decapitated bodies on the
streets of el-Arish, Rafah and other north Sinai towns for everyone to
see.
So the locals provide the military with little actionable intelligence.
One suggestion has been for the military to
arm local Sinai tribesmen hostile to the militants — like the Sunni Arab
"Awakening" militias in Iraq that were created by the U.S. military and
were a key part of defeating al-Qaida in the 2000s. Given the anger
many tribesmen now feel after Friday's massacre, it's a scenario that is
becoming less unthinkable.
The military, however, fears armed tribesmen could eventually turn against it.
Critics also contend the government's
country-wide campaign against Islamists has pushed some young people
toward the Islamic State group affiliate. The crackdown was launched
against the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after the military ousted
President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member. Since then, thousands of
Brotherhood members and other Islamists have been jailed. There have
been accounts of younger Islamists being radicalized, some in prison,
and turning to IS support.
The government contends that the Brotherhood is a terrorist group, intertwined with militants from the start.
Some
believe the militants are gambling as they turn ever more brutal,
risking a revolt by the populace. Hassan Khalaf, a local tribal elder,
said many of those killed were already cooperating with the army and
that they were likely targeted as an intimidation tactic. "People are
more determined now to stand against that inhuman and heartless bunch,"
he said.
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