Military and police operations against terrorist networks in Sinai have proved more successful than expected. Security experts say operations are no longer limited to arrests, confrontations with terrorist leaders and the elimination of sources of funding but have expanded to include the logistical support networks that allow extremists to sustain their activities. Military sources say operations will continue to proceed and evolve according to intelligence gathered in the course of the campaign. Security affairs expert Fouad Allam, told Al-Ahram Weekly that a guiding principle of operational plans is to minimise the loss of civilian lives. There is also an agreement not to impose a time limit. “The tactical aspects of incursion and confrontation,” he says, “are developing amazingly well.” A security source in Sinai revealed that last week's operations resulted in the arrest of 203 terrorist gunmen, 48 of them not Egyptian. They have been charged with assaulting security checkpoints and vital security facilities and firing at security forces. A further 78 terrorists were killed in the operations, of whom security sources say 46 were Egyptian and 32 not. “The quantities of arms seized during on-going operations show there were munition stores for what we can call the Muslim Brotherhood armed forces,” says Allam. He insists there is a clear link between the militia groups in Sinai and the Muslim Brotherhood. “The link might not be ideological. Indeed, there may well be ideological differences between some groups and the Brotherhood. But there were other bonds shaped by common interests between the parties. We cannot draw a line between the policies of the former political leadership and its decision to grant an amnesty to figures connected with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and Libya. Nor can we ignore the connection with Palestinian militant organisations. Future investigations are expected to reveal how these relations operated. Preliminary investigations confirm that, at the very least, the former leadership provided political cover as well as financing, funding arms depots in Libya and Sudan. Some of the weapons are large and would have been smuggled in parts to Sinai and then reassembled.” On Sunday Egyptian authorities announced that Khairat Daoud, described as the right hand man of Mohamed Al-Zawahri, the brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahri, had been arrested. Daoud's detention falls within plans to clamp down on the organisations steering terrorist attacks in Sinai and dry up their lines of support. Ali Bakr, an expert on Islamist groups, told the Weekly that Daoud was instrumental in reviving Islamic jihad, a militant takfiri organisation that at one point levelled accusations of heresy against the Muslim Brotherhood and former president Mohamed Morsi Allam characterises the jihadist organisation as an underground military organisation that will be difficult to uproot. Even if security forces succeed in capturing its leaders, he says, others will surface to take control. Anti-terrorist agencies have therefore prioritised intelligence gathering in an attempt determine the organisation's structures and any possible alternative leaders. In Gaza last week eye witnesses reported convoys of Ezzeddin Al-Qassam Brigades on the move. The Brigades' familiar banner was flown alongside emblems of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Qassam members were also seen giving what has become known as the “Rabaa Al-Adaweya sign” — a four fingered salute. The signal and placards bearing the raised hand were a common sight in pro-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations in Egypt. Their appearance in Gaza appeared to confirm information received from a source within the Brigades who claimed that when the Muslim Brotherhood reached power in Egypt Al-Qassam leadership was restructured to include Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood officials who, following differences between Hamas and Tehran over the Syrian crisis, undertook to make up any shortfall in Iranian funding. The Rafah tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, 80 per cent of which have now been filled by the army, also testify to relations between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. According to a source in Sinai the proliferation of tunnels, many constructed of reinforced concrete, reflected the extent of the economic ties between Hamas leaders and some Muslim Brotherhood businessmen. Some tunnels directly accessed large depots used to store petrol and cement. A statement released by Egyptian security authorities revealed that in the course of closing the tunnels 30 underground fuel depots were destroyed. Mohamed Gomaa, a specialist on Palestinian affairs at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, says that while the “organic relationship” between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood has long been common knowledge, Hamas is taking a risk by parading those ties in Al-Qassam Brigades' marches through Gaza. There are, Gomaa says, differences within Hamas over how to respond to developments in Egypt. Some within the movement urge restraint and the avoidance of any rhetoric that might be viewed as provocative by the Egyptian army. The appearance of Al-Qassam convoy, he argues, suggests that such voices are losing out to the zealously pro-Muslim Brotherhood contingent. “The Hamas government viewed Sinai as its backyard,” says Gomaa, “a safe corridor for arms and other strategic needs. This is why the movement supported strikes against Egypt's security forces in Sinai. It explains why so many Palestinian elements were discovered to have taken part in operations against the army.” Gomaa warns that Hamas might turn to missile strikes against Israel, delivered by operatives in Sinai or in Gaza, in an attempt to stoke tensions with Israel in the hope these will detract from the internal challenges it faces. The group, he says, is wary of the rise of a local version of the Tamarod movement in Gaza and is worried about the ramifications of any desire in Cairo to change the political equation in the strip. The ability of Hamas to maintain its current position in Gaza, says Gomaa, looks increasingly shaky, not least because of developments in Egypt. “By turning attention to a confrontation with Israel,” warns Gomaa, “Hamas will hope to divert attention away from itself while taking advantage of Egyptian-Israeli security coordination to drive home a the propaganda message that the Egyptian army is cooperating with its Israeli counterpart against the ‘Palestinian resistance'.” The army, says a senior military affairs expert, is taking all precautions to contend with this scenario. The source, who served for years with Military Intelligence in Sinai, notes that Hamas has lost much of its popular backing in Egypt which will make it difficult for the group to confuse issues in the way it wants. “Coordination with Israel is governed by numerous checks and balances,” says the source. “It is not conducted in a manner that could damage the image of Egypt and its Armed Forces. Israel has much more detailed intelligence on movements inside Gaza. It is also interested reducing smuggling operations and the threat of cross border attacks. Egypt is chiefly concerned that Israel does not undertake any unilateral action infringing on Egyptian sovereignty.” “Something has changed in Israel's own policy,” argues Gomaa. “It no longer adopts a literal position on Camp David and its security protocols but it wants to sustain the status quo in Gaza since Hamas's continued control of the strip ensures the Palestinians remain divided. This means the Egyptian army has to foot the humanitarian costs incurred by Gaza, keeping the Rafah crossing open while having to contend with a party — Hamas — which is not interested in dealing with the Egyptian army. It is a difficult equation: to keep dealing with Hamas, which exports terrorism to Sinai, because you do not want to sustain the blockade against Gaza which has enormous humanitarian costs and which, if it is sustained, Hamas will exploit in its insidious propaganda against Egypt.” That Egypt receives no international support in this matter, says Gomaa, begs the question of Washington's position on Sinai. The US, he suggests, has strategic plans for Sinai, viewing the peninsula as key to solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. These plans, Gomaa argues, would have been implemented with the approval and in coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and are part of a broader framework of regional security arrangements. Egypt's new authorities clearly oppose any plans that compromise Egyptian territory. Nevertheless, adds one source, the US has not been remiss in its support for Egypt's anti-terrorist campaign in Sinai. At the outset of operations the Pentagon urged Tel Aviv to approve Egypt's introduction of more aircraft, infantry and Special Forces to the peninsula. Israeli affairs expert Said Okasha offers an additional take on the situation. The US, he says, was working to combine a network of Islamist organisations under the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella in the hope of dispelling the notion that the US is fighting Islam. Washington's plans were undermined by the fall of the Muslim Brothers since when there have been differing opinions, not only among the political establishments in Israel and the US but also within their intelligence agencies, over how to deal with the situation in Sinai. The Pentagon, Okasha argues, now understands that the plan hatched by some think tanks in Washington to rely on the Muslim Brotherhood as a conduit to keep radical Islamist organisations under control and to use Sinai as an alternative territory for a Palestinian state was totally unrealistic. This understanding, he says, lagged behind Israeli intelligence which was better able to understand developments in Sinai and the need to support and coordinate with the Egyptian army.
