Mysterious open endings are a common denominator of terrorist and criminal attacks in Sinai. What exactly happened to the seven security personnel kidnapped in Sinai on 15 May remains a mystery, as do the circumstances of their release five days later. Last August's terrorist attack at Rafah had a far less happy outcome. It left 16 Egyptian soldiers dead, though who killed them remains as mysterious as ever. Then there is the case of four Egyptian policemen missing since February 2011. Three officers — Captain Mohamed Al-Gohari, Captain Sherif Al-Maadawi and Lieutenant Mohamed Hussein, and the policeman accompanying them, disappeared in North Sinai during the early days of the 2011 revolution. According to eyewitnesses, the officers were ambushed by masked men on 4 February near Arish. Assailants armed with automatic weapons stopped their car and then set it ablaze after transferring the policemen to their own vehicle. In the two years since rumours about the fate of the four men have proliferated. Some say that they were killed by Sinai Bedouins; others believe that they were kidnapped by either Hamas or a Jihadist group and are being held in Gaza. More than one newspaper published statements made recently by Press Syndicate Chairman Diaa Rashwan who claimed Deputy Director of Hamas's political bureau Moussa Abu Marzouk told him during a meeting at the syndicate's headquarters that the four policemen had been murdered and buried in Sinai. According to Rashwan, Abu Marzouk told him that the four were killed and buried in Sinai. Abu Marzouk claimed to know the rough whereabouts of the graves and to have passed all the information to Egyptian officials. A source within Hamas repeated the same information to Al-Masry Al-Youm. A Bedouin mediator also told Sada Al-Balad website that he had withdrawn from attempts to secure the release of the four since he was now convinced they were redundant. He now had information, he said, that the four men had been killed in an exchange of fire with the kidnappers. Official sources within the Interior Ministry deny the accuracy of such reports. On Sunday Rashwan told ONTV satellite channel that during a recent phone interview Hamas had declined to confirm the death of the abductees and even Abu Marzouk had retracted his earlier statements “If Abu Marzouk gave Rashwan this information and Hamas knows the location of the graves, then he must also know who killed the four and why,” General Fouad Allam, former deputy director of State Security, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Abdel-Rahim Ali, director of the Arab Centre for Research and Studies and an expert on Islamist movements, believes Hamas does know where the four policemen are. “Not even an ant crosses the Egypt-Gaza border without Hamas knowing,” says Ali. The policemen's relatives also believe that Hamas is hiding information about the fate of the officers. In a TV show this week Doaa Rashad, the wife of kidnapped officer Al-Gohari, said that until last Wednesday she was convinced the four men were being held in Al-Brazil, Gaza's underground prison, after being abducted by Hamas militants. Now, she says, “my source informs me info has been lost following last week's release of the seven kidnapped soldiers, which means the four policemen have been traded somewhere else.” Last February the wives of the missing policemen met with President Mohamed Morsi who instead of promising to help secure the release of their husbands offered to assist them in any divorce proceedings by declaring the four men missing. Yet according to minister of interior spokesman Major General Hani Abdel-Latif ministry officials still have hope they can secure the four men's release. The mother of missing officer Al-Maadawi claims the officers witnessed masked militants storming the Egyptian border with Gaza in the early days of the revolution. “My son called me and said that he had seen dozens of four-wheeled vehicles equipped with Gerenov rockets and other advanced weapons crossing the Egyptian border.” Sinai is suffering chronic problems following decades of neglect. It is an open secret that in the last two years the peninsula has become a venue for Jihadi militants and terrorist gangs. Ali, the expert on Islamist movements, finds Al-Maadawi's mother's version of events credible. “There is cooperation between Hamas and the Jihadist Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group led by Daghmash,” he says, adding that Daghmash was almost certainly involved in August's Rafah massacre. Allam also believes the abduction of the four policemen in 2011, last year's Rafah massacre and the kidnapping of the seven soldiers are linked. The Jihadist Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group, which is linked to Al-Qaeda is, claims Ali, the common factor in the three cases. Not that anybody is predicting that the investigations will be transparent. As always in these cases, the public will be kept in the dark.
