A shared threat

Israel is quietly cooperating with Egypt against the terrorists of the Sinai Province of the Islamic State

By YOSSI MELMAN
People and security officials walk and look as smoke rises from a tourist bus in the Red Sea resort town of Taba in the south Sinai, February 16, 2014. (photo credit: REUTERS)
People and security officials walk and look as smoke rises from a tourist bus in the Red Sea resort town of Taba in the south Sinai, February 16, 2014.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
THE ISRAEL Defense Forces’ Division No. 80 is stationed on the steep slopes of the Eilat Mountains, three kilometers west of the southern port and resort town on the shores of the Red Sea.
The division, also known as the Edomite division (named after the ancient tribes who lived in the area in biblical times), is responsible for overseeing Israel’s longest borders with Jordan and Egypt, which together stretch for nearly 500 kilometers.
Both Arab countries have signed peace treaties with Israel: Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 and have since maintained full diplomatic relations, as well as close, though clandestine, military and security cooperation.
This tight coordination is largely due to the fact that Cairo and Amman have identified important areas in which they share crucial common interests with Israel.
These shared interests are especially manifested in the dangers and threats posed by the rise of radical and militant Islamist groups such as Islamic State (IS) and the various jihadist factions affiliated with al-Qaida and Hamas.
Still, there is a big difference between Israel’s perception of these dangers and the reality facing Jordan to the east and particularly Egypt to the west.
Though the danger of IS, now struggling in bloody battles in Syria and Iraq and turning its eyes on Jordan, indeed looms on the horizon, so far Israeli security sources see no evidence of its presence in the Hashemite Kingdom.
Thus, as far as Israel is concerned, the Jordanian frontier is indeed a real “peace border.” For the last several years, there have been no terrorist incidents or attempts to infiltrate Israel from Jordan, and even criminal activity, mainly drug smuggling, has been very low.
The ultimate evidence for this tranquil reality is the fact that there is no fence separating the two countries.
If and when the national budget permits it, Israel plans to erect a fence along the Jordanian border. But knowing Israel’s national priorities, especially after the recent elections with social and economic matters topping the agenda, the notion of constructing a fence is very far away.
The Egyptian border, on the other hand, is much less calm and much more worrying, despite the decades-old peace treaty. Two years ago, Israel completed a 200-kilometer long fence from Eilat to Gaza. The costs topped 2 billion shekels and construction posed a serious engineering challenge to overcome the natural topography of deep canyons and high mountains. A visit to the area shows an impressive piece of work – a fence three to four meters high equipped with electronic sensors and cameras.
When originally conceived, the fence was designed to stop the flood of African immigrants and job seekers mainly from Eritrea and Sudan. Prior to its construction, between 6,000 and upwards of 10,000 people – sometimes entire families – were able to easily infiltrate Israel from the Sinai Peninsula. Last year, just 12 people managed to reach what is for them the “promised land” of Israel. In that sense, the fence has proven to be justified and effective.
But in the last three years, the barrier has become even more important to stop (or at least scale down) the threat of terrorism. In the twilight time between the toppling of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s regime in 2011 (as part of what was termed the Arab Spring) and the installation of the Muslim Brotherhood regime of Mohamed Morsi (who has been sentenced to death by an Egyptian court), a terrorist group emerged in Sinai calling itself Ansar Beit al-Maqdas, meaning Supporters of Jerusalem.
Recently, the group renamed itself the Sinai Province (SP) of the Islamic State, after pledging allegiance to IS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Two motives triggered its transformation: ideology and hope for financial infusion.
IS, which split three years ago from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida, introduced a new notion to radical Islam.
Instead of advocating the idea of transcending global Jihad (holy war) – i.e. world terrorism with no borders – it preached the creation of territorial units that would adhere to the fundamentalist 7th century ideas that ruled the region with the spread of Muhammad’s Islam.
IS not only preached but, in 2014, it began to walk the walk and embarked on implementing its philosophy in the large areas it conquered in Iraq and Syria.
The idea of territorial Islamic units had a great appeal for Ansar Beit al-Maqdas, but, regardless of its name change, cosmetic alterations and face lift, the group’s aims have remained the same. First and foremost, its operations are focused on fighting the Egyptian government and military with the goal of destabilizing the central regime, primarily to seize control of Sinai. Its secondary goal is to fight Israel.
The Sinai Peninsula is a huge arid desert of 60,000 square kilometers (more than twice the collective size of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank), which for centuries has served as a crossroads between Africa, Asia and Europe, carrying the weight of strategic importance and historical significance.
It extends between the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, bordering Israel and mainland Egypt, in close proximity to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Today, Sinai houses 360,000 inhabitants, mostly nomads (Bedouin) and including 80,000 Palestinians and foreigners. These inhabitants mostly live below the poverty line in conditions substandard even compared to the deteriorating Egyptian economy. The locals live basically in tribal societies, earning meager livings working for the declining tourist industry and from the smuggling of goods, drugs and weapons, as well as human trafficking.
SP is a relatively small group, consisting of fewer than 1,000 fighters and sympathizers. It draws its support from the local Bedouin tribes, the two largest being the Tarabin and the Azazma, which have family ties in Israel’s Negev desert. Its main presence is in the northern parts of Sinai around the city of el-Arish, with small cells in the central peninsula.
Despite its efforts, the group has no influence in the southern part of Sinai or in the Red Sea strip leading to Eilat, which is home to the bulk of Sinai’s tourism industry and is an important source of revenue for the Egyptian economy. As such, the Egyptian government tries its best to co-opt local tribesmen by offering them jobs to minimize the temptation of aiding SP. So far, the policy has been successful.
Before pledging allegiance to IS, the SP supported its terror ventures by robbing ATM machines and banks, auto theft, trading in stolen goods, and drug smuggling. Western sources monitoring SP say that, so far, there is no evidence that its merger with IS has showered it with the expected bonanza. For the short term, at least, it seems it has been forced to rely on its old and familiar sources of income.
Small though it is, SP has turned out to be a lethal force. Over the course of 2014, its militants killed 350 Egyptian soldiers, policemen, security servicemen and government officials. The group’s tactics have shown a constant improvement from small-scale ambushes and casual rifle fire to car bombings and relatively well-coordinated large-scale attacks against Egyptian military bases and police stations. Some of these raids were intended not only to kill, but also to capture weapons.
A milestone attack by SP occurred in January 2015, against the headquarters of the Egyptian brigade in el-Arish–it was a well executed and coordinated operation that included car bombs, mortar fires and an infantry assault.
The incident ended in the deaths of 44 Egyptian soldiers and officers and the looting of army weapons and armored vehicles. The attack shocked President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who declared war against SP, promising to wipe out the group and restore law and order to the area.
Egyptian officials claim that SP is supported by foreign jihadists who entered Sinai from Yemen and Somalia. But Western intelligence sources tell The Jerusalem Report there is no evidence of foreign presence.
“Basically SP is a local organization,” they say.
Sisi’s government has also accused Hamas of supporting SP. This accusation is understandable, judging from the war the president has raged against the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is a Gaza extension.
But Western intelligence sources say that although such ties between Hamas and SP existed in the past, they have all but ceased at the present.
If at all, SP might maintain contact with some renegade radical Gaza Islamists – those which, incidentally, Hamas has been trying to eliminate.
In recent months, there have been indications that the Egyptian army has intensified its campaign and managed to inflict heavy casualties on SP. The success of the Egyptian offensive has been made possible indirectly because of Israel’s readiness to make some major concessions. It was Sisi himself who, early in March, revealed to The Washington Post that Israel had agreed to let his army deploy more troops and helicopters in Sinai, particularly in the northern part, well beyond those sanctioned within the limitations of the peace treaty between the two countries.
This Israeli concession is not surprising. It is an essential Israeli interest that Sinai remains quiet with no terrorism. But, with all the upgraded security cooperation and coordination between the two countries along the border and at the highest military and government levels (Sisi said in the interview that he consults regularly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), Israel cannot rely on Egyptian determination and capabilities to defeat SP.
The fence, however, is just one measure Israel has implemented to secure its border. It has also built fortified posts manned by IDF troops, who day and night patrol the area and lay ambushes to prevent worstcase scenarios – in particular, that in which Sinai turns into a launching pad against southern Israel.
Over the last few years, armed groups – be they Palestinian militants, SP or drug smugglers – have attacked IDF positions and patrols, killing soldiers and civilians. Last year alone, 10 rockets were launched from Sinai in the direction of Eilat. In 2007, before the fence was erected, a Palestinian terrorist carrying a bomb easily crossed the border and blew himself up in a local bakery in the quiet resort town, killing three Israelis.
“Our worst nightmare,” a senior IDF officer told reporters during a visit along the border fence, “is that SP will try to repeat last January’s deadly attack in Egypt, but this time against our troops or against Eilat.
Our mission is to prevent that. We are vigilant all year long, but especially now, during the Passover holiday when hundreds of thousands of Israeli and foreign tourists will visit Eilat.”
This mission is made all the more challenging by the fact that both Israeli and Egyptian intelligence admit that they know very little about SP, its structure, members and levels of command. They also admit that it is not easy to penetrate the group and collect information considering the close-knit environment in which it exists.
 Yossi Melman is an Israeli security commentator and co-author of ‘Spies Against Armageddon.’ He blogs at www.israelspy.com and tweets at yossi_melman