Sinai : a tale of ten Apaches

Elayne Jude reports for Great North News Service

At a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukri in Cairo, US Secretary of State John Kerry said: "I am confident...that the Apaches will come and that they will come very, very soon." 23 June 2014. At the time of writing, those Apaches, instead of patrolling the skies over the insurgent Sinai peninsula, remain parked at Fort Hood.

Since the 2011 toppling of President Hosni Mubarak, the Sinai Peninsula has been used as a base for operations by al-Qaeda affiliates and other Islamic jihadist factions. As of early July 2014, according to the Egyptian military, nearly five hundred security officials have been killed by Sinai-based rebels. Al Jazeera quotes a figure of 1,400 killed in the security crackdown that began in September 2013, mostly Islamist protesters

Egypt possessed the capability to deal with extremism but lacked the political will to do so under President Muhammad Morsi, according to Michael Morell, former deputy director of central intelligence, now senior security correspondent for CBS. Since September 2013 the Egyptian military has been actively fighting peninsula jihadists, with repeated incursions into the strongholds of the North Sinai.

Groups using the names "al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula" and "Ansar al-Jihad in the Sinai Peninsula" among others released statements announcing their inception and pledging fealty to AQ's Ayman al-Zawahiri in August and December 2011, and January 2012. The jihadists possess an arsenal including antitank and antiaircraft missiles capable of striking ships in the Gulf of Aqaba and in the Suez Canal, commercial airline traffic, and Israeli border towns. Crucially for Egypt's weak economy, the jihadists also frighten tourist and foreign investors, on the mainland and in the once popular Sinai Desert, a favourite destination for clubbers, divers, trekkers and modern mystics.

Among the disparate groups, the most significant threat comes from two: Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (ABM), aka Ansar Jerusalem, and Majlis Shura al-Mujahedin Fi Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis. The Majlis Shura (the Mujahidin Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, or MSC). The latter name was last used by the organisation now known first as ISIS, now the Islamic State.

Both are connected to the southern Gaza Strip. They exploit a freedom to operate in Sinai which is unavailable to them in Gaza, where Hamas has contained jihadism. The groups appear to have reached a tacit understanding with Hamas that they can carry out any operations they wish in Sinai, but not in Gaza. They also operate a violent campaign in mainland Egypt. Their estimated combined membership is about three to four thousand; Bedouin and foreign fighters. In Bedouin society, many younger men are abandoning their ancient way of life, and tribal traditions, for Salafist jihad.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for a series of high-profile attacks on senior security officials, including an assassination attempt on the interior minister. In April 2014, the British and the US governments added Ansar Jerusalem/ABM to their lists of proscribed terrorist organisations. The group is also known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, or Supporters of the Holy House. ??? ??????: Beit al-Quds or ??? ??????: Beit al-Maqdis was one of a series of structures on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The MSC's first assault: an Egyptian and a Saudi national infiltrated southern Israel from Sinai on June 18 2012 and killed an Israeli worker. The suicide attack by non-Palestinians may have been a flag to all Muslims - not just Palestinians - to take the fight directly to Israeli territory.

Israel had not previously had to confront the situation of its border towns being in immediate range of AQ militias. The existence and behaviour of Israel has always been central to jihadist motivation, but not an immediate target or main focus of attacks. In the face of a new common enemy, Egypt and Israeli have established closer military co-operation than ever before. Ten Egyptian battalions are now operating in central and eastern Sinai via the Agreed Activities Mechanism (AAM), which enables Israel to consent to temporary Egyptian deployments in forbidden areas. Israel is keen to increase Egyptian presence here, and to make their permanent in Sinai, a de facto revision of the Military Annex to the 1979 peace treaty. Israel has established new territorial military divisions on the Sinai/Israeli border; constructed fences along the Egyptian front; increased troop deployments and new intelligence equipment and resources allocated for Sinai and the Golan Heights.

Egypt claims control over Sinai, but has not dealt with the terrorist bases in Jabal Halal and Wadi Amr. Since Cairo banned journalists from Sinai, the Egyptian military issues press statements detailing its campaign there - arrests, seizures of weapons caches, and neutralising improvised explosive devices. But the rebels are far from eradicated.In June 2014, the Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm reported that fifteen ISIS members were captured entering Sinai via a Gaza tunnel.

Much U.S. military assistance was frozen following the 2013 coup that ousted President Morsi. Delivery of several weapons systems are on hold, including F-16 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin , Harpoon missiles, M1A1 tank kits, and ten Apache helicopters that would likely be deployed in the Sinai (Egyptian-owned Apaches also patrol the Suez Canal, a task whose importance was underlined when two rocket-propelled grenades were fired at a ship there last summer). In April, Congress revised its decision. U.S. military assistance would henceforth be dependent on Egypt's satisfying several tests, such as the holding of a constitutional referendum and parliamentary and presidential elections, and similar totems of democratic process.

But subsequent concerns over the arrests of journalists and the death sentencing of political rivals under Morsi's successor, President al-Sisi, caused the chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, to place $650m of military aid on hold, including the delivery of the Apaches. Although much of this funding was later released, the Apaches have not materialised. In June, Kerry certified to Congress another key proof, that Egypt was "upholding its obligations under the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty." But human rights breaches, including press freedom, remain an obstacle.

Cairo has turned to Moscow, purchasing arms including attack helicopters. Attack helicopters are and will remain an irreplaceable asset against the Sinai insurgency. Egypt currently has thirty-four Apaches. Twelve are grounded due to maintenance issues and lack of spare parts. If Washington delivers those promised Apaches - soon, very soon - she could subsequently ground them by the same token; arranging the withdrawal of U.S. maintenance contractors.

"Washington would be better advised to consider delaying delivery of military materiel other than Apaches like Harpoons and tank kits -- that are important to Egypt but extraneous to the counterterrorism campaign" - David Schencker, Aufzien Fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute.

Elayne Jude is a Senior Research Associate for the U K Defence Forum and a writer and photographer. Her photographs here are (c) 2014  www.elaynejude.net