‘As Bad as Each Other’: Egypt’s Counter-Terrorism Policy in the Sinai Peninsula
In 2023, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi declared that terrorism had been eradicated from the Sinai Peninsula. Far from true, the region remains a quiet yet operational breeding ground for Islamist militant activity. Since 2014, ISIS’s Egyptian branch Wilayat Sinai has launched over 500 attacks, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,200 Egyptian army personnel and over 3,000 insurgents. Despite a recent decline in terrorist strikes, President Sisi’s counterinsurgency strategy has only temporarily patched a deeply entrenched issue.
History of the Sinai Insurgency
After Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai following the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the Government of Egypt (GoE) regarded the region as a strategic buffer zone and thus did not prioritize its development or well-being. Egyptians in the Nile Valley had historically viewed the Sinai Peninsula as a “lawless wilderness” and its Bedouin population as disloyal and “lesser” Egyptians. Because of this public perception, Sinai residents have often been treated as second-class citizens, barred from working in government, security, or tourism sectors. The isolated region, already a hub for Islamists exiled from the mainland, thus provided fertile ground for the radicalization of residents with legitimate grievances against a disengaged Cairo.
A series of bombings and kidnappings effectively shut down Sinai’s tourist industry in the early 2000s, heightened by GoE’s heavy-handed mass detainment policies. President Mubarak’s ousting in 2011 resulted in the release of more than a thousand Islamist political prisoners and the rise of several new Islamist militant groups including Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM, “Supporters of Jerusalem”). Insurgents took advantage of Cairo’s inability to enforce rule of law in the region by successfully targeting Egyptian and Israeli security infrastructure such as the Rafah border crossing. In retaliation, President Morsi initiated ‘Operation Eagle’, marking the beginning of constant military operations to attempt to subdue Sinai’s looming terrorist threat.
If 2003–2011 was the beginning of a bubbling insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, 2013 was the boiling point. ABM vowed revenge for President Sisi’s massacres of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in 2013, resulting in a plethora of assassinations, bombings, and attacks on security compounds. Following an established pattern, Sisi’s violent crackdowns proved to be incredibly effective recruitment tools for citizens already disillusioned with the Muslim Brotherhood’s failure to sustain an Islamic government. Hence began a period known as Egypt’s ‘Third Wave of Terror’, in which Egyptians saw 341 attacks in 2013 jump to nearly 3,000 in 2015.
In November 2014, Ansar Bayt declared its allegiance to ISIS and changed its name to Wilayat Sinai (WS, “the State of Sinai”) as per its “desire to be governed as part of [ISIS’s] proposed caliphate.” ISIS’s typical recruitment of “poor, disenfranchised Sunni communities” and romantic vision for a utopian Islamic society dispelled of “repressive, illegitimate regimes” appealed especially strongly to Sinai residents after the onset of President Sisi’s military rule. The reinvigorated insurgents thus began receiving funding and strategic assistance from ISIS, scaling their attacks in both size and complexity. During this time WS intensified suicide bombings and kidnappings of civilians, religious minorities (mostly Christians & Sufis), and tribes believed to be working with security forces.
In 2015, over 300 Wilayat Sinai militants launched a coordinated attack on 15+ military facilities in Sheikh Zuwaid, completely occupying the town for 12 hours before army reinforcements and fighter jets could push the militants out. WS then shot down Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 with a surface-to-air missile, killing its 224 civilian passengers, and hijacked an Egyptian naval vessel en route to Israel, leading Sisi to declare a State of Emergency in Egypt. One of the group’s most deadly attacks came in 2017 when WS bombed and killed 300 civilians inside Bir al-Abd’s majority-Sufi al-Rawda Mosque, the deadliest terror attack in Egypt’s modern history. President Sisi reacted with ‘Operation Sinai’ which deployed 88 battalions of 42,000 troops and declared a State of Emergency that remains in place to this day.
WS’s tactics, including the group’s frequent use of IEDs in residential areas, continue to put both military and civilians in harm’s way. In May 2022, militants from the ISIS-affiliated Wilayat Sinai launched attacks on several security checkpoints, killing 16 soldiers. WS insurgents clashed again with security forces at Sinai University later in 2022, resulting in a full evacuation of the campus and several student injuries. Much is still unknown about WS’s structure and capacities, but WS’s assassinations of high-profile figures and a recent attack on off-grid military facilities lead many to speculate on the group’s intelligence-collecting mechanisms as well as moles placed within the government and security forces.
WS is known to work along existing smuggling and arms trafficking networks within the Sinai Peninsula and across the Gaza Strip. The organization has also been extremely effective at maintaining relationships with local tribes by “capitalizing on local resentment” towards Cairo and “tailoring messages to local concerns.” With relative support from local populations and knowledge of the vast desert terrain, Wilayat Sinai has been able to maintain a presence in the region despite President Sisi’s heavy military crackdown.
Egypt’s Counterinsurgency Strategies
President Sisi has attempted to prevent terrorism in Sinai from spreading into mainland Egypt. Foreign reporters are prohibited from entering Sinai, hundreds of websites are arbitrarily banned in Egypt, and Internet and cellular networks are regularly shut down for days at a time. After one Rafah activist accused GoE of throwing bodies of arbitrarily executed civilians into rivers, he was detained and held for weeks in an off-the-grid military prison. Egyptian journalist and Wilson Center fellow Ismail Alexandrani was detained by the Egyptian army and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 for reporting on Sinai affairs.
Furthering the army’s containment strategy, Sisi has worked to restrict freedom of movement in Sinai. The military commands various checkpoints in the region to restrict residents’ movement and curb trafficking. GoE also enforces a strict curfew system and has effectively banned non-sanctioned gatherings in North Sinai. In 2018, ‘Operation Comprehensive Sinai’ authorized the creation of a 1,000-meter “buffer zone” between Sinai and the Gaza Strip to cut off smuggling between the regions and deprive WS of funding. In weeks, the army demolished more than 2,000 homes and cut off food, water, electricity, and Internet in the border town of Rafah, evicting over 10,000 civilians. Residents never received compensation for their losses.
Egyptian legislation was amended in 2017 to define “terror” as any act that “infringes on public order, endangers the safety or security of society… or harms social peace.” Tens of thousands of civilians have been arbitrarily arrested for violating this broad ‘terror’ definition in North Sinai without due process. The Interior Ministry, known for underreporting such instances, announced that it had arrested 11,000 “terror” suspects in the first nine months of 2015 alone, with Human Rights Watch estimating that over 60,000 have been arrested since the 2013 coup. According to locals, security forces regularly sweep through neighborhoods in North Sinai, indiscriminately rounding up and detaining young men in off-the-grid prisons.
In addition to mass arrests, Egyptian security forces have reportedly tortured and executed thousands of civilians. Amnesty International estimates that since 2013, four to five Egyptians are forcibly disappeared each day. In one example, Human Rights Watch reported discovering the bodies of two brothers who had been detained, shot, and left on the side of a road by Egyptian soldiers in North Sinai. Many Sinai residents have died in detention due to severe torture tactics; children as young as 12 are detained with adults, and all prisoners are subject to beatings and electric shocks that have left many disabled and fearful of further confrontation with the military.
Egypt has spent more than $4 billion USD employing a ‘scorched Earth’ counter-terrorism policy in North Sinai. Eighty-eight battalions — over 42,000 troops — are currently stationed in the region, and Sisi has spent millions on advanced weaponry, including Russian combat helicopters and French aircraft carriers. In 2018, Egyptian security forces began working with Bedouins in partnership with the Sinai Tribal Union. Formalized in ‘Operation Comprehensive Sinai’, Cairo now funds civilian militias to assist army personnel in securing checkpoints, gathering on-the-ground intelligence, and raiding jihadist compounds.
The Egyptian military notably also cooperates with Israel in its fight against terrorism in Sinai. Wilayat Sinai directly threatens Israel, frequently kidnapping Israeli tourists and publicly claiming to fight “the Jews and the apostate Egyptian government.” Israel reportedly conducts airstrikes and targeted assassinations to help Cairo regain its upper hand in the region. Israel also shares intelligence with Egypt, including local informants, signals interceptions, and aerial surveillance. Although Israel publicly denies cooperation with Egypt, the mutual threat of Wilayat Sinai has undoubtedly forced the countries to work together.
Successes & Barriers to Success
Statistically, Sisi’s counter-terrorism policy appears to be a success. Although Wilayat Sinai remains in Sinai, the group is largely inactive; attacks have declined from 330 in 2016 to 45 in 2021 and membership has reportedly decreased to less than 200. The military’s cooperation with local tribes in 2018 helped the army capitalize on local, on-the-ground intelligence and turn tribes against each other to root out terrorists. Additionally, Sisi’s harsh counter-terrorism policies and role in fighting ISIS have garnered the regime international rhetorical support and military aid, much of which turns a blind eye to the regime’s substandard human rights record.
On the other hand, the Egyptian military’s indiscriminate violence against civilians and failure to take responsibility for legitimate grievances is known to be a leading driver of WS’s continued recruitment and violence. Wilayat Sinai leverages this state violence against local populations in extensive propaganda campaigns. Many residents already fearful of indiscriminate arrest or execution have become further alienated by local pro-government militias who act “almost entirely outside the law.”
Several tactical military challenges stand in the way of Egypt winning its ‘war on terror’ in Sinai. Military decisions are made in Cairo (300+ km from North Sinai), the army is geared largely toward traditional warfare, and Egyptian intelligence has had trouble maintaining consistent, accurate intelligence on terrorist suspects. Thus, the Egyptian military has shown itself to be logistically unequipped to respond dynamically to the asymmetrical threat posed by Wilayat Sinai.
Ultimately, President Sisi’s use of violent, retaliatory operations has shown his lack of resolve in devising a comprehensive, long-term strategy for defeating terrorism in the region. Several scholars have even ventured to assert that Sisi has a political interest in prolonging the conflict in order to maintain troop deployments and secure domestic support and foreign aid. Sisi reportedly rejected encouragement from U.S. military officials to shift its use of $1.3 billion in annual U.S. aid to techniques more suited to fighting a prolonged insurgency, sticking instead to “big-ticket” purchases.
In a rare civilian interview, a family member of al-Rawda massacre victims told reporters “They are as bad as each other; the military will keep jailing and killing young people, [and] the terrorists who hate us will keep using it as an excuse to kill us.” Although Egypt appears to have come out victorious in the fight against terrorism in Sinai, Wilayat Sinai is likely only hibernating underground, waiting for Egyptian security forces to turn a blind eye. Instead of dismantling terrorism in the region, Egypt’s counterinsurgency policy has only radicalized an already-disillusioned population that will likely continue to resurface as a threat unless significant policy change is made.
