As part of its drive to enhance its combat efficacy, the Egyptian armed forces took part in the Aqaba 2016 military manoeuvres in Jordan while simultaneously carrying out two more training projects at home: Galut 8 and Raad 26. Meanwhile the Egyptian military came under an unprecedentedly fierce propaganda attack in a documentary film aired on the Qatari TV Channel Al-Jazeera. A Lebanese newspaper was also instrumental in circulating a rumour that the Egyptian airforce was assisting the Syrian regime in the battle of Aleppo. These attacks come at a time when army and security forces in North Sinai have sustained another terrorist assault. A security checkpoint in North Sinai was bombed last Thursday by a terrorist gang from the Daesh (Islamic State or IS) affiliate the Sinai Province Organisation (SPO), using four-wheel drive vehicles (SUVs) laden with large quantities of explosives. Twelve soldiers were killed in the attack and a similar number were wounded. Military spokesman Mohamed Samir said that three of the assailants were killed. Few days before this, the SPO executed sheikh Suleiman Abu Haraz, one of the most prominent Sufi leaders in the Sinai. The terrorists had abducted the 89-year-old sheikh at gunpoint from his home in the Mazraa district of southern Al-Arish. Before cutting off his head they dressed the victim in an orange suit, emulating the practice of Daesh executioners in Syria and Iraq. Twenty SPO members watched as the elderly man was slaughtered, offering a fresh reminder of the savagery of the Daesh organisation which is on the wane in Syria and Iraq. At the same time, the SPO announced the death of Abdel-Rahman Abu Maghsib, aka Abu Bakr Al-Ghazzawi, one of their combatants who came from Gaza. This is the first time that the Sinai-based terrorist organisation has revealed the identity of one of its members who was killed by the Egyptian army. Al-Ghazzawi was killed during the attack against the Al-Ghaz security checkpoint south of Al-Arish. Another security challenge reared its head last week, this time coming from the direction of the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera TV which aired a documentary about the Egyptian military called "The Soldiers". The film triggered a wave of popular anger in Egypt where the media responded with another documentary, "Egyptian Army Service is an Honour", which explores many aspects of military life. General Chief-of-Staff Hisham Al-Halabi of the Higher Military College at the Nasser Military Academy told Al-Ahram Weekly that “what Qatar is doing falls under the heading of psychological warfare. It is one of the tactics that is put into play with the purpose of destroying countries from within. It employs unconventional forms of warfare such as cyber and technological warfare and even ‘e-brigades' in order to disseminate negative propaganda or inflammatory information. In addition, there is the media machine which for Qatar is embodied in its Al-Jazeera network.” Commenting on the Qatari documentary, documentary filmmaker Hani Samir, winner of the best documentary award at the Cairo International Film Festival, said in an interview with the Weekly that “from the artistic standpoint, the film falls short of professional standards and therefore lacks credibility. There is an absence of sources. For the most part it relies on dramatised scenes as opposed to live footage. All this points to a glaring intent on the part of the Qatari authorities to make a film that damages Egypt and the Egyptian army.” Samir also observed that “the dramatic quality of the film is extremely low,” generating “a sense of artificiality.” Ultimately, the film is not worth seeing, and he faulted the Egyptian media for promoting it. “They [the media] are the ones giving it publicity it does not deserve,” he said, adding that the Qatari government “should be sued.” Sobhi Esseila, an expert with the information and public opinion survey programme at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told the Weekly that“Qatar has a glaring problem regarding the priorities of Arab national security and threats. Even if there is a political problem, or a sense of some political threat, there is no call to go so low. Qatar is aware that the army is a very sensitive area for Egypt, whether it treats it negatively or positively and by convention, governments do not handle security issues through the media.” What motivated Qatar to make the film was that it “harbours a deep-seated spite against the Egyptian army for having saved Egypt from the fate that met other Arab Spring countries,” said Al-Halabi. “Perhaps Qatar sees the continued strength of the Egyptian army as a threat to it, which would be incomprehensible.” General Chief-of-Staff Mohamed Qashqoush, an expert at the Nasser Military Academy, said Qatar was carrying out an agenda on its own behalf and on that of other regional parties. “The question is what would prompt Qatar to behave in that manner? Is it acting as a rival to a country of the size and influence of Egypt? Or is it just a tool for some other party,” he asked. In its 2016 report, Global Firepower, a leading think tank that specialises in assessing the strengths of world armies, ranks the Egyptian army as the 12th strongest in the world and the strongest in the Middle East. Qatar ranks 93rd. Qashqoush continued by saying that “I imagine that Qatar is acting in the manner of a small country that cannot confront the Egyptian army directly. But the question is who are those others who want to stir a war against the Egyptian army?” He pointed to a shift in the Gulf. “The Saudi leadership did nothing to prevent the Qatari offence against Egypt. This alone raises questions. Is this going to be the attitude of the Saudi leadership in which there are young men such as Mohamed bin Salman who are involved in the matter,” he asked. Both Qashqoush and Al-Halabi agreed that Qatari fingerprints could be clearly seen in the series of dismantlements of Arab armies. They also agreed that Doha was moving in the opposite direction to the general framework of Arab national security which still ranks Israel as the primary source of threat. Some Gulf countries now see Iran as the primary threat, he said. Qashqoush said there was considerable evidence that pointed to a Qatari hand in the deterioration and turmoil in Iraq, Syria and Libya. “As for the intentions regarding Egypt, the situation is clear, but the designs are not publicised. For example, the first visit of the current Qatari emir was to Morocco, but he travelled there by way of Sudan where he paused to pay $3 billion to militia groups in Darfour,” he said. “The problem there has been solved, but he wants to create a region of terrorist rebellion to the south of Egypt in the border area from Al-Uweinat to the Aswan High Dam. He is trying to purchase the allegiance of armed groups along that line in order to wreak attrition on the Egyptian army and diffuse its attention at a time when the army is focussed on Sinai.” Ahmed Kamel, a regional security researcher, offered his analysis of the Qatari film to the Weekly. “The film did not target Egypt's political leadership, but rather its military leadership. It attempts to convey four basic messages: That the army is poorly equipped, that officers are poorly trained in Egyptian military colleges and academies, that there is a focus on appearance of military units at the expense of training programmes, and that the army's intervention in the economy has turned it into a construction contractor and merchant. The film raises the question of the use of conscripts as corvée labour.” “But the film overlooked many facts which undermine the entire substance of it,” Kamel continued. “It is impossible to ignore, for example, the military efficacy enhancement programme that has involved an unprecedented number of manoeuvres abroad as well as an unprecedentedly intense training manoeuvres programme at home during the past four years.” “In addition, despite many challenges the process of upgrading the military's hardware has proceeded rapidly, not just in domestic terms but also in terms of regional competition. Evidence of this can be seen in the acquisitions of the Rafale jets, the Mistral aircraft carrier and the military satellite and various other modern military technology acquisitions and contracts with France, China and Russia.” The researcher also noted high levels of volunteer enlistment in the Egyptian army. In economic terms, he held that the army's intervention was compelled by certain exigencies that the Egyptian people understood, “even though they undeniably pose challenges.” As for the “corvée labour” question, he held that the film deliberated portrayed things out of context. Conscripts routinely engage in janitorial and other services in the army. “This is the practice in all armies of the world and such work is not degrading.” To add to the Qatari smear campaign against the Egyptian army, the Lebanese Al-Safir newspaper published a news item recently claiming that 18 Egyptian pilots had taken part in the combat activities in Aleppo. The purpose of this report was presumably to fuel the current tensions between Egypt and the Gulf and Riyadh, in particular, against the backdrop of Egypt's political stance on the Syria crisis. Egyptian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid issued an absolute denial of the substance of the news item. “Such claims exist only in the imaginations of those who propagate them. The aim of such rumours is obvious to all,” he said. He then reaffirmed Egypt's commitment to non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other nations. “Egypt understands that the Syrian problem cannot be solved through military intervention and that any additional military intervention adds a new party to the crisis, further complicating it rather than helping to solve it,” Al-Halabi said. “At the same time, Egypt believes that there must be a settlement process that does not end in the partition of Syria but rather works to preserve Syria's territorial integrity. To Egypt, what matters most is not whether President Bashar Al-Assad remains or leaves, but that there is some order in the country as opposed to another Somalia.” He added that “even the Russian intervention is costly, slow-moving and limited in its success.” The Egyptian military has had more important concerns than such propaganda campaigns against it, according to military experts contacted by the Weekly. For example, there were the Egyptian-Jordanian joint manoeuvres Aqaba 2016, the activities of which wound down last week. A range of land, sea and air formations participated in these exercises, many components of which were designed to enhance capacities to contend with unconventional threats, especially terrorism and urban warfare. At the same time, the Egyptian army carried out its largest live-ammunition manoeuvre. The exercises were performed over the course of several days by various military units in the military zone along Egypt's western border in the framework of the strategic mobilisation project Galut 8 and the tactical live ammunition project known as the Raad 26 manoeuvres in the western military zone.
