The last 12 months saw the Salafist jihadist challenge in Sinai intensify. In the last quarter of 2014, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis declared allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group, a dangerous metamorphosis that gives the terror group a character that sets it apart from its counterparts elsewhere in Egypt. If, prior to its conversion, jihadists in Sinai had adopted some IS-like modes of behaviour, in substance Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis remained contingent on its Bedouin foundations. With the establishment of the IS Sinai Province, terrorism in the peninsula became a subordinate regional affiliate. In 2015, especially in the latter half of the year, the dominant trend was towards concentration, rather than diffusion. There is no longer a Salafist jihadist “plurality”, multiple organisations stemming from different ideological tributaries and with divergent or even conflicting aims. Rather, there has been a process of merger and monopolisation from which regional-oriented rivals such as Al-Murabitun, the Sinai Al-Qaeda franchise that refuses to join the IS umbrella, has been excluded. Despite these changes in the jihadist dynamic, the most important development in Sinai in 2015 remains the Egyptian government's success in forestalling the “emirate” model that Sinai Province sought to clone in Egypt. It was a difficult test, and one that the Egyptian government passed with flying colours. That IS Sinai Province has replaced Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis does not signify that the environment in Sinai, which between 2011 and 2014 was receptive to Salafist Jihadist expansion, still offers the same scope for growth. Indeed, it can be argued that the opposite is now true.
REGIONAL COUNTERPARTS: IS, in Iraq and Syria and in provinces of Libya, operates in environments that provide economic resources, oil fields and petroleum refineries, which can be used to fund expansion. In Sinai, the organisation has no such resources. Sources of income available to its predecessors — cross-border human trafficking and arms smuggling — are no longer available. In Iraq, Syria and Libya, IS and its affiliates have more opportunity to expand across borders due to the collapse of the central state. In Sinai, the reverse is true. Security is very tight along the border with Gaza and Israel. The cohesiveness of the Egyptian state could not be in greater contrast to the collapsed state institutions in areas where IS has thrived. The occasional instances of sympathy with IS found, for example, in Sunni areas in Iraq, where the inhabitants live beneath the weight of Shia oppression, or in areas where sectarian tensions are high due to the policies and practices of successive governments, do not exist in Egypt. Nor has the overlap in interests between terrorist organisations and intelligence agencies, which has hampered efforts to eliminate terrorist groups in several states, developed in Egypt. The security collapse in Syria and Iraq created an environment that enabled IS to seize advanced weapons and equipment once in the possession of the Iraqi army. IS cannot make such advances in Sinai. Nor can it engage in the kind of widespread recruitment that characterises its strategy elsewhere. Recruitment in Sinai is based on individual and tribal resentment at the injustices inflicted by the Mubarak regime and way the peninsula was marginalised. IS Sinai Province members are motivated by exactly the same motivation as those who joined Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. When it comes to recruitment, there has been no upsurge.
THE LOCAL ENVIRONMENT: The local environment was favourable to Sinai Province's predecessors, particularly Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. The porous Sinai-Gaza border and the proliferation of tunnels used for smuggling were crucial to the funding of the organisation. But a war with Israel is not on the IS agenda, one consequence of which is that it does not enjoy the kind of cooperation with Hamas that its predecessor did. Tellingly, there has been no declaration of a Gaza Province to mirror that in Sinai. Declarations of allegiance to IS in Gaza have been very few, and when they have occurred Hamas has moved quickly to stamp them out. That some organisations that had gathered beneath the Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis umbrella are hostile IS Sinai Province constitutes a weak point for the new organisation, especially at the level of funding. The former Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis commander, Shadi Al-Maniei, refused to declare allegiance to IS because his mother is from Gaza and comes from a family that belongs to Hamas. Al-Maniei's uncle, Ibrahim Al-Maniei, was a key figure in the management of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis's economic network but has now fled to Gaza and his services are no longer available to IS Sinai Province. Such defections, and the hostility felt towards IS by men such as Hisham Ashmawi, aka Abu Omar Al-Muhager, commander of Al-Murabitun, has deprived IS Sinai Province of economic and recruitment support. Most members of Sinai Province have Bedouin roots. While they can tolerate the hardships of desert life, have combat abilities and carry arms, few have much formal education, something that sets the organisation apart from its counterparts in Iraq and Syria. Sinai Province also lacks members with skills in military tactics.
SIGNS OF FRAGMENTATION: In July 2015 Hisham Ashmawi, an officer who had been dismissed from the Armed Forces, announced the creation of Al-Murabitun, and with it the first major schism within IS Sinai Province. In May 2015, IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi wrote to the group that had gathered around Ashmawi. He addressed them as “the brothers in the land of Egypt from the Al-Qaeda organisation,” and requested their cooperation. The letter failed, however, to achieve this. Ashmawi's organisation has claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks outside Sinai, including the operation against a checkpoint in Farafra in July 2014 that left 21 soldiers dead. It is believed that Ashmawi was wounded in the operation and then smuggled across the border into Libya for treatment.
IS BY THE END OF 2015: IS Sinai Province announced its arrival on the scene with a violent onslaught against the state and its security forces. It carried out multiple attacks against police and soldiers, and introduced new tactics to Sinai, including the bombing of armoured vehicles. It also began to emulate the suicide attacks that have characterised IS operations elsewhere. It did not, however, succeed in holding any territory. That project was thwarted in July 2015 when security forces retaliated, destroying much of the organisation's equipment and infrastructure, including vehicles, communication systems, weapon arsenals and training centres. The government's sweeping security campaign began after the Karm Al-Qawadis attack. Although IS Sinai Province has managed to carry out some operations since, its capabilities remain seriously eroded.
THE SECURITY SITUATION: The increasing expertise acquired by security agencies from confronting IS in its strongholds in Rafah and Sheikh Zuwaid did not prevent the army from sustaining considerable losses. At the outset, there was a kind of parity in the confrontation, but once the army began sweeping operations and changed its tactics and broadening the scope of targets, the balance of power shifted and security forces succeeded in taking control of the organisation's strongholds in the Mahdiya area and on the outskirts of nearby towns.
REACTIONS: IS Sinai Province's counterstrategy was to turn towards the coast and target the navy. The shift was signalled when, on 16 July, a naval craft was targeted by a missile fired from Rafah. The attack was seen as an attempt by the organisation to show it remained strong despite being defeated in its battle to seize control of Sheikh Zuwaid. Following the Rafah attack, security forces launched the Martyr's Right Operation, which scored many strategic successes. Still, IS Sinai Province persisted in launching strikes, targeting judges in front of the Swiss Inn hotel in Al-Arish during the first stage of the parliamentary elections. Jihadists in Sinai constitute the biggest threat the Egyptian state has faced in the peninsula since it was returned to Egypt's control in 1982. The threat has two components: IS Sinai Province and Al-Murabitun, though the latter uses Libya as a base. While the government will keep its focus trained on Sinai Province, around which the noose is being tightened in Sinai, it will also turn attention westwards, where the security environment in Libya could allow jihadists to operate along the Egyptian border. The prospect of a confrontation on two or more fronts remains a real possibility. Terrorism in the Sinai will not end, though it may be reduced and debilitated, until the root causes that spawned it are tackled. The state needs to create convincing alternatives to the ideas and models propagated by the extremists among the inhabitants of the peninsula.
