On 23 September 2013 one of Egypt’s semi-official newspapers headlined its front page with “Egypt will be declared terrorism-free in a few days”. A year and a half has passed since this headline and terrorism is still widespread in Egypt. The headline was part of a public relations campaign aiming to pave the way, at the time, for General Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi to run in the presidential elections and to give the impression that all is well and stable. Since then statements and reports stressing that Egypt “triumphed over terrorism” or that “Sinai has been purified of all terrorist and takfirist cells” have circulated and were reiterated by the military spokesman. It is surprising that after such statements, new terrorist attacks and bombings occur, similar to those occurring in the past few weeks. It is as if the terrorists deliberately “blast” the state’s official narrative regarding the situation in Sinai.
The irony is that every time bombings occurred in the Sinai Peninsula, the military leaders and officials are promoted to jobs unrelated to the Sinai issue. This occurred two days ago when Major General Mohammed Faraj Shahat, the second field army commander in charge of the Sinai Peninsula, was promoted to director of military intelligence and reconnaissance. In addition to this, his assistant, Major General Nasser Al-Asi, who was chief of staff for the second field army, was also promoted to replace Shahat. If Egypt were a normal country, like any other, then Shahat, Al-Asi and all other officials responsible for military operations in Sinai would be dismissed and held accountable for their miserable failure to protect the lives of the soldiers and people in Sinai.
The only way Al-Sisi knows how to deal with the Sinai issue is through security measures and an iron fist, which is the case in all other issues. Therefore, the security failure is always the result of the logic behind the continuous military operations. He does not realise that while his planes are destroying the homes of Egyptians in search of one suspect, they are killing and injuring dozens of innocent Egyptians.
Three days ago, the Al-Habidi family was massacred in the village of Al-Thahir in southern Sheikh Zuweid. Eleven members of the family were killed, including children and women, one of whom was pregnant. Al-Sisi also does not realise that when his cannons bomb Bedouin farms and kill their cattle, it creates new problems that drive those affected to join terrorist organisations, not out of conviction in the ideology, but for revenge. Al-Sisi does not know that when he displaces hundreds of families from their homes in Rafah and uproots them from their origins and identities, he creates new generations that see violence and revenge as the only way to deal with the state.
Al-Sisi does not know that the families of Sinai are bored of the “false” promises made by the state and its officials to develop their areas and resolve their problems, as well as integrate its people, especially the Bedouins and treat them as full citizens with all their rights. He does not know that they know that all the development plans that are announced in the media, the most recent of which is a plan for which $1.3 million was allocated, are basically ink on paper, none of which is actually implemented. Al-Sisi does not know that people of Sinai reject violence and terrorism as much as they reject the marginalisation and deprivation imposed on them by the state for the past 40 years. Al-Sisi does not know, or maybe does not want to know, that the solution to the Sinai crisis is not only a security solution, but that the solution must begin with admitting that the security strategy implemented in Sinai has failed miserably in achieving its goals and that it is time to reconsider it and make radical changes.
Al-Sisi is following in the footsteps of his predecessors and is dealing with Sinai as a source of danger and concern, rather than a victim of official methodological neglect, making it more like a ticking time bomb. The source of the problem in Sinai is not only security, but rather social, economic and political as well. He does not ask himself why the rate of terrorist attacks has increased in quantity and quality since the army began its operations in the area in September 2013.
These attacks also dramatically increased after Al-Sisi rose to power in June 2014. Al-Sisi has not asked himself why the Wilayat Sinai (Province of Sinai) forces became violent and took control of entire villages, according to experts in Sinai affairs. Al-Sisi did not visit the people of Sinai in order to pay his condolences to the victims of the indiscriminate bombing, nor did he send a delegate to pay condolences to their families on his behalf. We did not hear the military spokesperson pray for the souls of the children and women who were killed in a war they have no part in. It is as if the people of Sinai are not Egyptian citizens who deserve care and attention; as if they deserve the punishment of the state and its institutions.
The war on terror will not succeed, especially in Sinai, until a change is made in the ideology, strategy and approach behind dealing with the accumulating problems there. The Wilayat Sinai (Province of Sinai) forces will not be defeated without the participation of Sinai’s civil society in the fight against this force. Most of the people in Sinai are against the organisation, but there are between the anvil of terrorism and the hammer of a state that does not care about them or address their problems.
The fight against terrorism in Sinai and other areas requires Al-Sisi to know and acknowledge that violence and indiscriminate killing are not solutions and that without recognising the state and its institutions’ responsibility for what Sinai has become, terrorism will not stop and the terrorists will not be defeated.
Translated from Al-Araby Al-Jadid, 14 April 2015.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.