Egypt Pours Military Might Into North Sinai
Developments come days after attack at the Rafah border crossing
Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Ian Lee CNN
August 09, 2012
(CNN) -- Gunmen attacked a police station Thursday in North Sinai, firing several rounds, the latest in a string of violence raging in the area.Egypt sent in a huge convoy of military reinforcements in hopes of bringing security and stability. Heavy equipment including bulldozers and cranes were brought in to help block smuggling tunnels into the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
A police station that was burned down during the uprising in Egypt in January of last year reopened Thursday "to restore law and order back to the highly sensitive area of Sheikh Zuweid, where recent clashes took place between the army and armed militants," said Gen. Ahmed Bakr, head of North Sinai security.
The developments come days after 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed and seven others were wounded when assailants with semiautomatic weapons and hand grenades stole two armored vehicles from Egyptian forces and tried to enter Israel.
That attack, which took place Sunday near the Rafah border crossing, led Egypt to shut the border indefinitely.
Clashes have intensified since.
An Egyptian general who works in intelligence in North Sinai told CNN, "There is a high probability that those who committed the Sunday massacre of the 16 soldiers are members of Palestinian Islamic Jaljala Army, which is a group considered an offshoot of Hamas but with more radical beliefs. They are a force in the hundreds after their leader Abdel Latif Moussa was killed in 2009 for announcing a Palestinian in Emirate in Gaza challenging Hamas' authority."
Hamas controls the tunnels into Egypt, so the attackers must have informed Hamas, the general said. And the attackers "must have received assistance from Bedouin in Sinai for logistical support, motivated by money."
The general also said the the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad provided Egyptian intelligence with a list of nine names of terrorists connected to the attack, who are members of a group called Al Tawhid Wal Jihad, based in Gaza and Sinai.
Israel has blamed militants associated with a jihadist group for the attack. The Muslim Brotherhood, meanwhile, has accused Mossad of being behind it.
No group has claimed responsibility.
Israel has handed over the charred remains of six assailants to Egypt, and the remains have been transferred to the Forensic Department in Cairo University for DNA tests in an attempt to identify the perpetrators, according to State TV.
Ibrahim Al Menei, who owns several tunnels into Gaza, told CNN there are no more than 10 tunnels in Rafah that people can move through. "No one comes through without Hamas' knowledge," and all who cross have to pay a fee to Hamas, he said.
"The Egyptian authorities know about these tunnels," he said. "Why don't they ever block them is the question. They spoke about drowning them with water ... but they never implemented it. A lot of these tunnels have five to seven exit points and are around 200 meters. You can enter Sinai from Gaza in 15 minutes. "
The violence this week has been relentless.
Masked gunmen launched six simultaneous attacks in North Sinai early Wednesday, wounding five security officers and a civilian. Targets included five security checkpoints and a military cement factory, Bakr said.
Egyptian forces responded with aerial strikes aimed at militants.
Army Apache helicopters fired rockets Wednesday, and there were numerous casualties, Bakr said. State-run Nile TV reported that aerial strikes killed at least 20 in the port town of El Arish.
Egypt's military leadership, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, issued a statement Wednesday saying that the operation targeting "armed terrorist elements" in Sinai "has accomplished this task with complete success."
Two security sources who did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media told CNN that militants are concentrated in Jabal Al Halal in mid-Sinai. They are armed with rocket-propelled grenades, anti-aircraft guns and other weapons, including land mines, the sources said.
Security forces had failed in previous attempts to enter what is referred to as Al Halal Mountain, the sources said. But air assaults killed many of the militants, they said.
Still, land mines and the potential for ambushes made it difficult to enter the area using ground vehicles, they said.
Khaled Fouda, the governor of Southern Sinai, declared a state of emergency in all state sectors in the province, including a reduction in the number of tourist buses in order to ensure vehicles servicing tourists will be guarded.
A political shakeup occurred amid the violence. The state-run Middle East News Agency said that the governor of Northern Sinai was sacked and that a new general intelligence agency head was chosen after his predecessor received an "early" retirement.
The violence is a foreign policy test for Egypt's new government and its president, Mohamed Morsy, a former longtime leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the dominant Islamist party.
Islamists and many other Egyptians abhor Israel and its peace treaty with Egypt. Israel, which borders Sinai, raised concerns about terrorism in the region after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year.
Morsy's "response to this crisis will provide the first real evidence of his oft-stated commitment to foreign diplomats that he will respect Egypt's international agreements, that is, maintain the peace treaty with Israel," said Robert Satloff and Eric Trager, analysts with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington-based think tank.
Sinai has long had its own identity, with many inhabitants -- particularly Bedouins -- not considering themselves Egyptians. They complain of a heavy-handed Egyptian state intruding on their terrain, providing large tracts of land to Cairo-based businessmen and investors and failing to involve them in developing the region's prosperity.
During last year's revolution, Sinai inhabitants attacked police stations, particularly in El Arish. Security forces have detained scores of Bedouins accused of involvement in a string of terrorist bombings in Sinai between 2004 and 2006.
Also, Egyptian security sources say 23,000 prisoners escaped during the revolution, and only a third have been apprehended. Many of those on the loose are believed to have fled to Sinai.
In addition to weapons, drugs are smuggled through the area.
CNN's Ben Wedeman, Joe Sterling and Josh Levs contributed to this report.