A 15-year-old suicide bomber struck a public market in Sheikh Zuweid in North Sinai on Tuesday killing four policemen — a major, a police sergeant and two police conscripts — according to an official Interior Ministry statement. The bomb also killed three civilians, including a child, and wounded 26 others. According to the ministry's statement, a 15-year-old male blew himself up near a police contingent that was performing a combing operation in the vicinity of the market. Shortly afterwards Internet accounts affiliated with the Islamic State (IS)-affiliated Sinai Province claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was carried out by Abu Hager Al-Masri. The attack occurred two weeks after the organisation broadcast a video called “Pledge and Perseverance”. Posted on web pages on 28 March, the video is an attempt to prove IS still exists following the defeats it has sustained in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, the claim of responsibility issued following the market attack in North Sinai said the bombing was “in revenge for the Syria Province”. It is known that the terrorist organisation is struggling to overcome internal divisions as a consequence of the leadership crisis precipitated by debilitating blows against its hierarchical structures. Most leaders of the founding generation have been eliminated in successive counter-terrorist operations and unseasoned mid-level leaders are now at the helm. The result is an unprecedented degree of structural weakness, something reflected in the poor quality of the posted video when compared to the earlier, sleek productions of the IS propaganda machine. The IS communiqué used the term “raid”, an odd choice to describe a lone suicide bombing in Sheikh Zuweid carried out by an adolescent. The organisation has deteriorated, and its recruiting capacities have virtually sunk to zero. The attack, if it was intended as an attempt to show the group continues and remains relevant, actually showed the opposite — that it must now resort to children to carry out an attack. If anything, it confirms that the organisation no longer has operatives capable of carrying out the kind of operations of Sheikh Zuweid experienced in the past. The North Sinai town was once a major terrorist incubator and the staging point for major attacks before the launch of Comprehensive Operation Sinai (COS) 2018. One of the most notorious attacks of that period was the assault against the Egyptian Armed Forces in Karm Al-Qawadis. The choice of the location for this attack is also telling. In the past the terrorist organisation set its crosshairs on military and police installations, checkpoints or the roads that security patrols used. Now it has begun hitting civilian targets in populated and crowded areas. This is not just a result of the difficulty it has in reaching security locations, it is a sign of the extent to which the organisation has lost any local support. Tuesday's attack was clearly an act of desperation. It follows a series of successful pre-emptive strikes by the Interior Ministry's National Security apparatus against terrorist cells in Arish and Rafah. In Rafah two cells were recently destroyed and 16 terrorist operatives eliminated. It is also noteworthy that the attack coincided with the trial of hundreds of terrorist operatives in the Sinai Province Cell 4 case. Yet the claim of responsibility pointedly ignored the real context. Instead, it spoke of revenge for the Syria Province, a coded distress signal and appeal for help from operatives abroad. COS 2018 is an ongoing operation, and while the cumulative experience gleaned from counter-terrorist operations puts paid to the notion of a definitive defeat of terrorism, the latest attack points incontrovertibly to Sinai Province's paucity of capabilities and the destruction of its logistic support environment. It is a sign of the success of ongoing operations by the security agencies and the army in Sinai.
