Sinai attack reverberates across region
By Victor Kotsev
The sophisticated attack in which 16
Egyptian soldiers and at least seven terrorists
were killed on Sunday near the Egypt-Israel border
threatens to unravel the delicate relationship
between Cairo, Jerusalem and the Palestinian Hamas
militant organization which controls the Gaza
Strip. In all likelihood, it will also impact the
expected Palestinian bid for non-member status at
the United Nations next month, as well as the
already explosive state of affairs inside Egypt.
Several slightly different versions of
what exactly happened exist, but it is
particularly shocking that the militants -
believed to be Global Jihad operatives from the
Sinai Peninsula and the nearby Gaza Strip - set
out by attacking an Egyptian military post. The
terrorists chose a time when the soldiers were
praying and preparing to break their Ramadan fast
in order to maximize the
element of surprise,
prompting the Egyptian military to brand them as
"infidels".
Shortly after 7 pm, a group of
around 35 armed men arrived at the camp in
all-terrain vehicles and opened fire with heavy
weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades.
Within minutes, 16 Egyptians were dead and another
seven wounded, three critically. The attackers
proceeded to hijack an armored personal carrier
(APC), which they rammed through the border gates
separating Israel from Egypt. A pickup truck
loaded with at least half a tonne of explosives
followed, but got stuck at the gate and exploded
for an unknown reason a little while later.
After a spectacular 15-minute chase on the
Israeli side of the border, which involved
firefights with Israeli ground forces, tank fire
and an air strike, the APC was destroyed and all
the terrorists inside - seven or eight in total -
were killed. Most of them were found to be wearing
explosive suicide belts, an indication that they
were planning to execute a multiple-casualty
attack inside Israel.
For the Israelis,
the action began several hours earlier, when their
air force killed a militant in Gaza and injured
another. Their army and intelligence services then
announced that a major attack on the border with
Egypt had been successfully thwarted, even as
dozens of rockets and mortar rounds rained on
southern Israel in retaliation. While
representatives of the army denied any connection
between the two incidents in interviews with the
Israeli press, Israeli military units had been put
on high alert, which likely helped prevent a
greater tragedy.
The Egyptians had been
similarly alerted, but were nevertheless caught by
surprise. According to most reports, their force
was greatly outgunned by the terrorists. In all,
the attack was similar in some ways to several
other major incidents over the past few years
which originated in Gaza but were executed through
Sinai, yet differed in its unprecedented
complexity and scope.
Regardless of the
advance warning, as of Monday night there was
little clarity as to the exact perpetrators, and
no group had claimed responsibility. While an
Egyptian operation in Sinai aimed at mopping up
the remaining terrorists continued, the
finger-pointing quickly turned into a grotesque
exercise on all sides.
The Israeli defense
minister blamed al-Qaeda, even as the Israeli
ambassador to the United States blamed Iran. [1]
The Egyptian military pointed a finger at Gaza
militants, [2] while the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood (the other main political force in the
country), backed by Hamas and the Lebanese
militant organization Hezbollah, claimed that
Israel itself was behind the attack.
"This
crime can be attributed to the [Israeli spy
service] Mossad, which has been seeking to abort
the revolution since its inception and the proof
of this is that it gave instructions to its
zionist citizens in Sinai to depart immediately a
few days ago," a Brotherhood statement cited by
Reuters read. This proclamation recalled a bizarre
claim from 2010, when Egyptian officials accused
the Mossad of dispatching a shark to destroy their
tourism industry. [3]
The confusion and
attempts to shift the blame can be explained by
the fact that the affair embarrasses both Egypt
and Hamas, and places Israel in an awkward
situation. According to Israeli military analyst
Ron Ben-Yishai, the aim of the attack was to cause
a military confrontation between Israel and Egypt.
In support of this thesis, a similar cross-border
raid last summer resulted in a firefight between
Israeli and Egyptian soldiers, leaving five
Egyptians dead and causing a major diplomatic
scandal.
"The terror attack, had it not
been thwarted, could have led to a direct clash
between the Israeli and Egyptian armies," writes
Ben-Yishai in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.
"The third 'victim' was supposed to be the Muslim
Brotherhood movement in Egypt, which Global Jihad
deems too moderate." [4]
Hamas, which is
an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has also
made several overtures in the past few months
which have branded it as increasingly moderate,
and it stands to lose much from the incident.
Egypt immediately closed the border crossing with
Gaza at the town of Rafah "indefinitely", and
reportedly also cut off traffic along the many
underground tunnels linking Sinai with the strip.
Following the attack, many Egyptians
condemned the various Palestinian militant
organizations in Gaza, and some Egyptian media
even threatened a military operation there akin to
the ones periodically conducted by Israel. In
short, many of the steps taken by Hamas and the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to boost their
relationship in the last months were reversed in a
few hours, and both were left scrambling to
prevent a further decline.
It is hard to
say how exactly the intrigue will play out.
Following the ouster of former Egyptian president
Hosni Mubarak, relations between Egypt and Israel
deteriorated significantly, and some analysts
speculate that the incident will reverse this
trend.
Certainly, security considerations
demand better cooperation between the two
countries - Israel is reportedly considering a new
Egyptian request to allow more troops into the
Sinai peninsula, which was largely demilitarized
following the 1979 peace treaty - but whether this
need will outweigh the populist rhetoric on the
Egyptian side is unclear.
Just how deep
the mistrust runs can be gleaned from another
bizarre recent incident, when the newly elected
Egyptian president, the Muslim Brotherhood's
Mohammed Morsi, sent a conciliatory letter to
Israeli President Shimon Peres. Shortly afterward,
as domestic criticism against Morsi mounted, he
denied having sent any letter. [5]
Similarly, the attack may push the Muslim
Brotherhood closer to its arch-nemesis, the
Egyptian army, but whether such a development will
last is doubtful. Amid increasing chaos and almost
daily riots in the country, sparked by power
outages and shortages of basic goods such as
cooking gas, the Brotherhood and the army are
playing a game of cat and mouse, most recently
over the drafting of the new Egyptian
constitution. A ruling on the issue by the Supreme
Constitutional Court, which is widely perceived as
biased in favor of the army, is expected next
month, and a tense feeling persists along the
Nile.
Finally, the incident will impact
the relationship between Hamas and its main
Palestinian rival, the Palestinian Authority (PA),
which rules over the West Bank. The ouster of
Mubarak was seen as a major blow to the PA, and,
conversely, the ascendancy of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt provided a boost for Hamas.
Now, however, this trend may be reversed to an
extent.
There have been increasing
indications that the PA plans to renew its bid for
recognition at the United Nations next month,
perhaps in the form of an application for
non-member observer status. Hamas has in the past
been critical of the PA's overtures at the UN,
while a parallel intra-Palestinian reconciliation
process between the two administrations has
stalled. It is possible that the two rivals will
be temporarily drawn closer together by the
fallout from the attack, which could potentially
delay the diplomatic initiative.
One thing
seems clear: the incredibly complex attack has
caused great consternation to all major parties
involved - the Israelis, the Egyptians and the
Palestinians. Only luck and an advance warning
prevented a larger and bloodier incident that
could have pushed the already strained
relationships over the brink. Next time - and
given the growing chaos in Sinai, it appears to be
only a matter of time - they may not be as lucky.
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