Instability in Sinai peninsula: Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis & Co. ROMAN KOT
Key facts The Sinai is a triangular peninsula of 60, 000 square kilometres ( 6% of Egypt’s land mass ) Population 600 000 people Beduins – 70 % The rest - immigrants from Nyle delta 99% - Sunni muslim 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty: formally a demilitarized zone
positive for jihadi movement characteristics of Sinai topography: deserts and in the central part and cities on the customs; Tribes with their contradictions with central government; The Egyptian state’s weakness in Sinai due to their agreements with Israel; Suez Canal and Israel as a targets; The potential to revive jihadism in Egypt; An American troop presence in Sinai as part of the Multinational Force and Observers monitoring the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel;
2011 Revolution and its consequences for Sinai The security breakdown following the 2011 revolution that toppled Salafi-jihadist groups to operate in the peninsula. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s fatwas for “jihad” as a means of securing sharia law in Egypt. weekly – in some cases, daily – attacks against police and security forces, and occasionally against Israeli and foreign targets.
Main operatimg groups on Sinai peninsula
Frequency of attacs in 2010 -2014
Chronicles of instability: 2011 -2015 5 February 2011: First attack on natural-gas pipeline to Israel; 18 August 2011: Cross-border multi-stage attack in and around Eilat, Israel, 6 -8 Israelis reported killed; 19 August 2013: Ambush of police in Rafah, North Sinai, 24 reported killed; 20 November 2013: Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices attack on Egyptian soldiers, 11 reported killed; 24 December 2013: Explosion at Daqahliya Security Directorate, 16 reported killed; 24 January 2014: Bombing of Cairo security directorate, 6 reported killed, over 100 wounded; 16 February 2014: Bomb attack on tourist bus in Taba, North Sinai, 3 South Korean tourists and Egyptian driver reported killed; 2 April 2014: Triple bomb attack in Cairo kills police brigadier-general, wounds five other police officers, 23 January attack on a police checkpoint in Beni Suef on 2014 that killed 5 people; 24 October 2014, two attacks on Egyptian army positions in the Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 33 security personnel; 28 January 2015 Assassination of Mohammed al-Saied, member of Egypt’s interior ministry; 29 January 2015: simultaneous attacks in North Sinai, more than 30 killed; 8 -13 April 2015: multiple attacks on military and civil targets, 36 killed.
Declared Provinces of “Islamic State”
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis Crisis in ABM: from March through October 2014, many top-level ABM leaders were killed (Tawfiq Mohammad Faraj (Abu Abdullah) – March 11, Muhammad Al-Sayyid Mansur Al-Tukhi (Abu Ubayda) – mid. April, Shadi Al-Menei – may 23, Shehta Al-Ma’atqa – early October) Two ABM representatives visited IS leaders and discussed IS future alliance November 10, 2014, two months after the launching of the coalition campaign, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis publicly swore allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Consequences for Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis exacerbating pre-existing divisions within the group between the Sinai-based leadership leaned toward an affiliation with IS for months, and the Nile Valley group generally pro–Al-Qaeda and skeptical of IS; Reputational damage from use of increasingly brutal tactics which leads to decreasing support of population; Support in financial resources from IS; Potential to reinforce ABM through foreign fighters; Joining of other jihadi groups in Sinai as well as individual fighters;
Conclusions Operational level a allegiance with IS reinforces fighting capabilities of ABM through involving additional finances and human resources in near and mid-terms. On strategic level ABM’s allegiance made the group more vulnerable and has deepened its internal divisions, made the group appear more extreme (thus alienating it from the Egyptian population) and diminished ABM’s ability to cooperate with Sinaibased and regional militant organizations that are more closely aligned with Al-Qaeda.
Sources Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis’s Oath of Allegiance to the Islamic State, Wikistrat, Daveed Gartenstein. Ross, February 2015 http: //wikistrat. wpengine. netdna-cdn. com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/02/Ansar-Bayt-Al-Maqdis-Oath-of-Allegiance-to-the-Islamic-State-Wikistrat. Report. pdf The International Coalition Campaign against ISIS – Initial Analysis (First Six Months), The Meir Amit Intelligence Information Center, Israel, March 2015 http: //www. terrorisminfo. org. il/Data/articles/Art_20780/E_031_15_2133231096_122384646. pdf Emily Dyer, Terror in the Sinai, The Henry Jackson Society www. henryjacksonsociety. org Zack Gold, Security in the Sinai: Present and Future, International Centre for Counterterrorism, Hague, March 2014 http: //www. icct. nl/download/file/ICCT-Gold-Security-In-The-Sinai-March 2014. pdf
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