The security breakdown in Sinai continues, writes Ahmed Eliba Hardly a week goes by without reports of smuggled arms destined for Sinai being seized. According to police and military sources the shipment apprehended last week on the coastal road from Libya to Alexandria is just the tip of a potentially enormous iceberg. One byproduct of the Libyan civil war is that Libya is now a huge weapons warehouse, supplying arms to a host of regional hotspots, including Syria and the 250km border between Egypt and Israel. Islam Qudair, a young political activist from the Sinai, recounts the origins of the problem in the peninsula. "The security breakdown along the border strip from Rafah to Mahdiya, Jafiya and Wadi Amr can be traced to former security officials under the Mubarak regime. They used the route for arms smuggling from which they raked in huge profits. They introduced the Bedouin tribes to the trade. Anyone who defied these officials would at the very least face arrest. Following the security breakdown in the wake of the revolution and easy access to Libyan arms Bedouins took over the trade in north Sinai. It is so lucrative that they not only earn a living but can amass fortunes. Now it will take more than just governorate security forces to deal with the trade. Any remedy will have to involve national agencies." Mohamed Hamad, the son of a tribal chief in Beer Al-Abad, has a similarly bleak prognosis. Last week he witnessed a shootout just a few steps away from his home. "We were shocked at the huge quantity of arms. They came from different sources. Some we know came from Gabal Al-Halal after being smuggled from Israel. Others came along the north coast road from Libya. What is frightening is that guns now speak loudest and are having the last say." Particularly ominous, in Hamad's opinion, is the growing domestic market for arms. Until recently smuggled weapons mostly ended up in the hands of armed groups in Gaza which had agents in Sinai to take care of the supply operations. Recently, however, a parallel market has arisen in the form of increasingly active jihadist groups which are attempting to build up arsenals in the peninsula. "Before the security breakdown these groups were marginal elements in the tribes. They were isolated and ignored because of their ossified ideas. Post-revolution they found a fertile environment emerging in tandem with the rise of political and organisational structures which has allowed them to surface. Today we are hearing ideas that could come straight from Al-Qaeda. Although they do not belong to that organisation they have clearly been inspired by it. They feel they are beyond tribal rule, which jeopardises social structures that have long defined Sinai society. The traditional authority of tribal sheikhs is being undermined by those spouting political and religious catchphrases." Qudair agrees. "They have formed a network that infiltrates the major tribes and they now have the power to threaten anyone who touches them. They even attacked a journalist from the Sinai just because he wrote an article about them in an independent newspaper. They went to his house and threw a bomb at it." The Azazna tribe has been fingered as a source of current tensions in northern Sinai. Half the tribe's members are not recognised as Egyptian citizens. Their identity cards read "nationality unknown", though the tribe has a record of loyalty to the Egyptian state. After the 1967 defeat the Azazna was on the front line of defence against Israel and many of its members worked as spies for Egyptian intelligence, guiding Egyptian operatives through mountain passes. During the 1973 War they provided valuable logistic support. Yet following the peace treaty with Israel the Egyptian government has steadfastly refused to acknowledge them. In Al-Husna and Nakhl, growing tensions and the spread of arms are often connected with tribal disputes. "There's an arms race between the tribes who boast of the arms they possess and use them to settle their disputes," says Ahmed Abu Dara from Arish. There is, of course, an economic dimension to the problem, with many Bedouins increasingly angry at their marginalisation by the state. They speak at length of the oppression young Bedouins face. Young men complain of arbitrary arrest, while an elder from the Suraka tribe says that while he didn't expect the government to care much about the Bedouin he also "didn't expect them to leave us living off scraps of land while they built skyscrapers around us". The streets of Arish city are now punctuated with roadblocks, some equipped with tanks, especially outside governorate buildings and the courthouse. In the daytime the security measures may give the impression of stability but not at night, when the gangs prowl. Interestingly, luxury cars have made their appearance among Arish youth. The word is that they are being paid for from the profits of arms trafficking. It was a gruelling moment when the traffic on the main street ground to halt and a group of masked men carrying state-of-the-art weapons peered through our car window. We breathed a sigh of relief after being allowed to move on. When we stopped to ask someone what that was all about we were told it was a "documentation check" intended to apprehend anyone involved in tribal disputes and confiscate their cars and weapons. Across the border, in Tel Aviv, research centres, think tanks and government agencies are busy assessing the situation in Sinai and drawing up scenarios to deal with what is increasingly seen as a potential hotspot. In February the Director of the Begin Centre Ephraim Anbar, a prominent academic close to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, issued a report on the security impact of the Arab Spring on Israel. One recommendation was for Israel to create a border zone. Some observers took this as a sign that Israel is planning to reoccupy parts of Sinai. While it would not venture to repeat an occupation the whole of the peninsula the fact that the idea of even a partial occupation was floated suggests that Israeli policy planners are considering a wide range of military options. "The implications are very serious if the situation [in the Sinai] grows worse," says Said Okasha, managing editor of Mukhtarat Israiliya (Israeli selections), published by Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "But Israel's current government is not inclined to unilateral military solutions. It would prefer a joint Israeli-Egyptian solution. Signs of this tendency emerged in the phase following the revolution when the Israelis allowed more Egyptian forces in the border area." Analysts suggest that the Egyptian army is entertaining one of two scenarios for dealing with the situation. Both premise themselves on the question of whether Egypt wants to make Israel realise that the area is on the brink of disaster. In one scenario, Egypt would use the situation as a pressure card to force Israel to change peace agreement security protocols to increase Egyptian military presence in the Sinai. The second scenario is based on an assumption that the military is now aware that it cannot contain the situation in Sinai alone. The Israeli security agency, Shabak, has said it is confident it can thwart eight out of 10 operations originating in Sinai until Egypt elects a new president. Then either the two sides can work out a new strategy in accordance with bilateral agreements or Israel will take unilateral action in the event of Egypt turning into an Islamic state with an alliance with Iran. According to Tarek Fahmi, director of the Israel unit in the National Centre for Middle East Studies, Israeli anxieties with respect to Sinai are focussed on the area of Sheikh Zuwaid, which is believed to be a centre for the spread of arms. Tel Aviv is worried about armed groups that are not being monitored and which subscribe to an Al-Qaeda-like programme. "So far there is no solid evidence that these groups are active, but that does not mean Israel will not wait. It doesn't want to wake up one day to find that the situation has grown so serious that it has been taken by surprise at the gates of Tel Aviv." Information ascribed to security leaks suggests Iran is behind some of the arms smuggling activity in northern Sinai. Military experts such as generals Mahmoud Khalaf and Safwat El-Zayat find this difficult to believe. Some security agencies, says El-Zayat, are keen to implicate Iran. He points out that the leaks were not from Egyptian sources and that Tehran is trying to develop a new framework for its relations with Egypt. "By the end of this year Israel will have completed the construction of the electronic fence along the border with Egypt," he says. "This will put a stop to most cross-border infiltrations. Although Israeli government spokesman Mark Jeff has said that the purpose of the wall is to prevent the illegal transit of persons, we believe that it will minimise the danger of major operations, certainly those involving missiles that individuals can carry. There is a worry that missile capacities could escalate to include Sam, Fateh or Jarrad projectiles. Then we will be looking at the possibility of a major incident that could threaten all existing security agreements." Israel, El-Zayat stresses, directly intervened in the Ghur valley in Jordan, southern Lebanon, and Deir Al-Zor in Syria, when it felt that those areas threatened its security.
