Aftermath of a duel From the anonymity of the Qaloubiya governorate, the village Arab Sharkas shot into the limelight last week, propelled by the gruesome images of the aftermath of a duel. There, police and army closed in on operatives believed to be in the employ of the infamous, Sinai-based, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. After a deadly shootout, security forces managed to seize an impressive cache of weaponry, plus suicide bombing paraphernalia, primed and ready, including car bombs and explosive belts. One battle has been won. But many may yet have to be fought. The cell in Arab Sharkas can only be one of many, and the target is by now familiar: army and police personnel and government buildings. Our security forces, back on their feet after many months of trauma, were up to the task. But this can be just the beginning. The images that came out of Arab Sharkas were mind-boggling. Tons of explosives were kept in store, together with sophisticated weaponry that can unleash an untold stream of death and mayhem. The size and sophistication of the cache tells a disturbing story of an organisation that means business, bloody and extensive. The first point this encounter highlights is that of weaponry. For the past two years or more, weapons flooded into Egypt from Libya, Sudan and Gaza with criminal intent. One has to ask, who provided the funding for such demonic trade? Who offered safe passage, transport, and depots? The logistics are expensive, and the kind of personnel needed to handle some of the weaponry found is not exactly untrained. This is not a question of security, but politics. If we don't have the answer to these questions, and fast, then our war on terror will be compromised. This battle is not for the faint of heart, nor the misinformed. We need to find the lines of communications, identify the top operatives, and follow the money and the training to their sources. Guessing is not good enough. A country such as Egypt, one that is fighting a war on terror on an unprecedented scale, needs information — not guesswork. Which takes us to the second point that Arab Sharkas brings up: when did our borders become so porous, and how? Pointing the finger at regional powers and international conspirators is not enough. We need to take responsibility for what happened, and if there is negligence on our part, it must be addressed. If sizeable and sophisticated weapons found their place into this country, and now are lying in waiting for the next bloody assault, we must identify our political and security loopholes. This war is just beginning, and more battles — just as grisly, if not more — will be fought. Therefore, we need to address our own failures, and make sure that we act on knowledge, not randomly. Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis is styling itself after Al-Qaeda, and its operatives are of a higher level of combat readiness than anything that one can attribute to the Muslim Brotherhood. Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, now being flushed out of its strongholds in Sinai, is striking closer to home, with vengeance on its mind. Many wonder if Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis and the Muslim Brotherhood are acting in cahoots. The Brotherhood, as you may know, has for many years disassociated itself from violence. But at these turbulent political times, it is hard to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is not gratified with Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis's handiwork. Can it be that the Muslim Brotherhood, embittered by its ouster, is cooperating with Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis? If true, what form of cooperation is taking place? Both the Brotherhood and Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis have one thing in common. They both want the state weakened and turmoil spreading, but for different motives. In the Muslim Brotherhood case, it wants back into government ranks, and hopes to debilitate government and nation until some deal is made, allowing it back into the political scene. In Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis's case, the goal is simpler: the creation of an Afghan-style Islamist emirate. A symbiosis is perhaps at work here, for Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis operatives find it convenient to use the political misfortunes, albeit self-inflicted, of the Muslim Brotherhood to justify its campaign of terror. The Muslim Brotherhood, for its part, likes to mesh the bloodshed of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis with its low-grade campaign of intimidation for maximum revenge on the country that revolted against their theological brand of inept government. The timing of the Arab Sharkas confrontation is of interest here. According to the Interior Ministry, the Arab Sharkas cell planned to stage terror attacks on 19 March. This is — you may remember — the same date of the first constitutional referendum in Egypt, three years ago. This is the same referendum that some Islamists called “the battle of the ballot boxes”. So the symbolism is not lost on Muslim Brotherhood supporters. On the same day, young supporters of the Brotherhood, protesting in Cairo University, raised Al-Qaeda's flag, an unprecedented incident in this venerable seat of learning. The symbolism is hard to ignore, Al-Qaeda flags in the hands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, and tons of explosives in the hands of Al-Qaeda-styled Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. The Muslim Brotherhood, evidently, is still in denial of its own failings. It hasn't searched its soul for the real reasons it lost the power it had aspired to attain for so many years. A largely secretive group, we still have much to learn about it — about its finances, logistics, and the range and nature of its oft-murky alliances. Does the Muslim Brotherhood have a military outfit, or is it contracting others to do its dirty work? Was Mohamed Morsi actively facilitating the work of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis? When the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in was still going on, speakers from the Muslim Brotherhood and its friends would take to the podium and promise “to burn Egypt”. Were these idle threats, or the harbinger of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis's actions?
