Sinai: Egypt’s main security test now

It is the biggest army operation in Sinai since the 1973 war. But this time the Egyptian army is not fighting Israel but an unknown number of militants who had turned the large and relatively empty spans of desert between Al Arish and Rafah, on the border of the Gaza Strip, into a terrorist haven. Northern Sinai had become the gadfly of the military-backed government in Cairo since the July 3 action that unseated President Muhammad Mursi.
As the government confronts opponents of the military action throughout the country, there are fears that the militants in Sinai will bring the attacks to the Nile Valley.
The attempt on the life of Egyptian Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim in Cairo two weeks ago amplified such fears. The Egyptian army has dispatched elite fighting troops, tanks, airships and heavy armor to areas in Sinai that are only few kilometers away from borders with Israel. The two-month-old campaign has become a test to the military as insurgents continue to fight back, attacking manned roadblocks and killing and wounding dozens of soldiers and policemen. Last week they blew up the headquarters of military intelligence in Rafah, prompting questions about the viability, and duration, of the military operation so far. The worsening situation in Sinai is one of the reasons why the government decided last week to extend the state of emergency by two more months.
On Sunday a military spokesperson showed a video of Egyptian troops, backed by tanks and helicopters, raiding suspected buildings and blowing up tunnels between Sinai and Gaza. He reported that the army had seized weapons, arrested hundreds of suspects and killed dozens of terrorists. “It is a battle for the national security of Egypt,” he said. And he was right. He noted there was “cooperation between armed and terrorist organizations and their counterpart in the Gaza Strip”.
Even under the rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, Northern Sinai had presented a security challenge to the central government in Cairo. Since its liberation from Israel more than three decades ago, the northern part of the peninsula had always been fraught with economic and security problems.
Inhabited largely by Bedouin tribes, the sparsely populated swath of land between the Suez Canal and Gaza received little attention from successive governments. The Egyptian authorities often complained that northern Sinai had become a major base for smuggling and drug trafficking. In recent months it had become a refuge for militants as well.
Unlike Southern Sinai, where billions of dollars were invested in tourism, the north languished in poverty and remained largely underdeveloped. This is one reason why its inhabitants leaned toward the militants after the Jan. 25 revolution. President Mursi garnered the overwhelming majority of votes in the presidential elections. He promised to invest in this vast desert, which had seen three major Arab-Israeli wars.
But even when unknown assailants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in an ambush more than a year ago, President Mursi resisted pressure from the army to wage a large-scale security campaign in Sinai. He opened the Rafah border point with Gaza and permitted the closure of only a small number of illegal tunnels, which were used to smuggle munitions and even weapons to and from the beleaguered Strip. Under Mursi, relations between Cairo and the Hamas government in Gaza flourished, and the Egyptian president brokered a historic ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas in charge of the Strip in 2012.
When Mursi was deposed the military turned its attention to the border area between Gaza and Sinai. It now accuses Hamas of orchestrating anti-government attacks in Sinai, a charge that the Gaza government rejects describing allegations as “lies and fabrications”. As a result the Cairo government intensified its campaign to demolish tunnels and closed the Rafah border point for an indefinite period of time. Cairo now wants the border point to be controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the Gaza side.
Hamas finds itself as a major loser after the ouster of Mursi. While it insists that it has nothing to do with the insurgency in Sinai, the Egyptian military has presented evidence to the contrary. As a result Egyptian public opinion has turned against Hamas and one can find little sympathy in the Egyptian media for the plight of Gazans.
Hamas was wrong to defend the opening of tunnels even when the security situation in Sinai had worsened. Militants, some of them foreign, found refuge in the Sinai desert especially after the fall of the Libyan regime two years ago. Sophisticated weapons, including anti-air missiles, were smuggled into Northern Sinai from Libya as Egypt sunk into lawlessness and chaos.
Today Northern Sinai is a closed military zone and even journalists are not allowed to enter. The military operation is likely to increase tension between the local population and the central government as uncorroborated allegations point to indiscriminate killings of residents. It is imperative that this campaign is followed by serious government initiatives to develop the north and invite foreign and local investments. Eventually the Egyptian army will triumph but the cost of restoring peace and stability to this deprived part of the country will come at a high price.

• Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
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