“The kidnapped soldiers have been freed but the military operation will not end until criminal lairs in the Sinai are eliminated,” declared second field army commander General Ahmed Wasfi. The continued presence of military forces has elicited Israeli consternation and requests for an explanation from the US administration in response to aerial footage filmed by the multinational force (MFO). On the ground eyewitnesses report a “cautious calm”, as Sinai political activist Hossam Al-Shorbagui described it in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. Stationary and mobile police and military checkpoints have proliferated in Area C of the peninsula, he said. The military operation, dubbed Dignity, is an extension of Operation Eagle which was launched in August 2012. The first phase of Operation Dignity ended with the return of the kidnapped soldiers, said a military spokesman who would not offer further details on this phase. The mystery shrouding the operation has generated much conflicting conjecture, all of it compounded by differing accounts from the presidency and the military. Sources in the presidency involved in the management of the hostage crisis have sought to promote the view that there was close coordination and frequent exchanges of views while sources in intelligence and the military give an opposite account of what really happened. A source close to the president's office says the negotiations were expertly steered by military intelligence and that from the moment they began on 21 May, just 24 hours before the release of the soldiers, the security team (consisting of officers from the police, the army, General Intelligence and Military Intelligence) allowed no intervention from anyone outside these agencies. The Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) were denied any role in the process. On 19 May army forces moved swiftly towards north eastern Sinai and initiated contacts with Bedouin tribal leaders and other sources of intelligence on the ground. The mobilisation triggered immediate communications from Israel and a series of meetings in the president's office. The timing of the army's mobilisation indicates that military authorities had decided to act rapidly before engaging in talks with the presidency and in advance of communications with the Israelis or the Americans. It further suggests that while the presidency had vowed to ensure the safety of the kidnappers the army did not approve of his policy, forcing the president to revise his future statements. According to a military intelligence source Sinai's Bedouins refused to support the army operation. Rather, they opted to escalate the crisis, either because they were initially unsure of who was involved in the kidnapping or because tribal members were involved alongside jihadist elements. The source confirmed that the military command and military intelligence now have a full picture of the kidnapping and its perpetrators. He said that details could not be disclosed owing to national security considerations, adding that “the activities of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates between Libya and Egypt are some of these considerations, with respect to which Egypt is coordinating with the US.” With regard to the kidnapped soldiers, he said: “For the first time the Military Intelligence delivered a clear and firm message to the tribal elders. It said, ‘If the kidnapped soldiers are not released there will be no remorse. We'll take them all out, even if that involves killing the soldiers who will be accorded the greatest honours, because the army will not allow itself to be abused.' We believe that the message reached the kidnappers who had begun to feel the heat of the systematic military build-up in their vicinity, and although there were no orders to engage the army was very close to them.” According to the source, army authorities knew the kidnappers' location from aerial photographs and other intelligence. In the opinion of Hossam Kheirallah, former deputy director of the General Intelligence, the provocation of the military was intentional and carried out by the kidnappers with “extreme precision”. In an interview with the Weekly he said that the video that had been broadcast on the Internet was carefully constructed to deliver a message of a particular sort to political and military leaders. “The relationship between the two sides is uneven. Both are carrying a knife behind their back. There is evidence to suggest that the perpetrators of the kidnapping are fully aware of this situation,” he said. Kheirallah believes the army should appraise the public of each phase of its operations, offering an account of the results without disclosing sensitive details. He did, however, say he understood the army's inclination to remain silent in light of security considerations. “The danger is looming and the situation will grow more complex,” he said. FJP Vice Chairman Essam Al-Erian and other Brotherhood sources have suggested that security elements from Fatah who fled to Sinai at the outset of the Palestinian rift were behind the kidnapping. Fatah member Mohamed Dahlan has countered that the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas were the masterminds. Muslim Brotherhood officials shrug this allegation off, insisting, in the words of Hatem Taha, an FJP official and advisor to the president, that “officers of the Dahlan group are not only responsible for this [kidnapping] but also killed Egyptian soldiers in Rafah”, referring to the assault against an Egyptian border patrol last year. Taha also played on the theme of “foreign conspiracies” operating in the Sinai with the aim of undermining the Suez Canal Axis Development Project. “There are 25km in Sinai that are a hot spot. This is not important in and of itself, though we should acknowledge it. However, we also have 1,500 kilometres that are filled with potential wealth. What is needed to develop this area is investment which will come from all parts of the world in partnership with us, and this invites hostility from our enemies because we have created an important network of interests. As for the internal network of interests that the previous regime had developed in order to obtain the allegiances of the tribal elders, there are millions of dollars that it obtained from EU governments on the pretext of Sinai development. But the development projects were not implemented. All that was accomplished was some 30 surface water wells and a few housing developments. The rest of the money was distributed among the tribal chiefs, regardless of what is written in the official paperwork and illusory claims of achievements. In the period following the revolution the situation changed. Real progress was made on the ground. We are not claiming that this is due to the FJP alone. This is for all of Egypt. There is a real plan for development and we will carry it out.” In an interview with the Weekly Ibrahim Al-Manei, head of the Sinai tribal federation and chief of the Sawarka tribe, said that northern Sinai tribes knew who had carried out the kidnapping. However, he added, “We appreciate the wisdom of the army in showing restraint, not to resort to the policy of collective punishment and to favour negotiation over a military solution. That attitude contributed to the rapid completion of the negotiating process. The army knows that brutality will only inflame the situation further which would result in a loss for all.” Al-Manei says the kidnappers' original motive was to secure the release of those convicted in the Dahab and Sharm El-Sheikh bombings. They subsequently added the demand to release Hamada Abu Shita in order to establish a link with torture in prison and win public sympathy. He discarded the possibility that elements from abroad were involved in the operation. It was, he says, carried out by persons incensed by the former regime's reneging on its promises. “There was this officer, Ali Ragab, who would take $1,000 for every narcotics case, evidence of which he either fabricated or destroyed. Eventually he was charged with corruption and found guilty. But the people who were sentenced in the cases he fabricated are still in prison. I met with the president and told him that the situation in the Sinai was volatile. I explained to him all the dimensions. Unfortunately no one acted, not the presidency or the ruling party or the opposition. It's as though the Sinai has been consigned to oblivion in spite of outside meddling which, one day, will lead to grave disasters.” He continued: “The future scenario is bleak. There will be an agreement or form of coordination between the jihadists and those sentenced in absentia. I have information confirming that collaboration between these two is already happening. This scenario is very dangerous. What is needed now is for a totally new page to be opened between the regime and the people of the Sinai in which there is a clear and binding commitment to certain principles.” The head of the president's office concedes that nothing of what was supposed to have been implemented in Sinai has been carried out yet and that the presidency has been too slow to act, especially with regard to sentences handed down to Sinai residents, in 90 per cent of cases on the basis of falsified evidence.
