Early Wednesday, militants attacked five Egyptian military checkpoints in the northern Sinai Peninsula. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi responded by ordering the biggest military crackdown in Sinai since the 1973 war. The military claimed that a counterattack involving air strikes and Apache helicopter gunships killed 20 militants. Morsi also asked his defense minister to replace the commander of Egypt's military police, fired his intelligence chief and fired the governor of North Sinai. Unrest in that region has been building for about a year and culminated in an attack Aug. 5 that killed 15 Egyptian soldiers stationed at the Israeli border.
The Egyptian government had to formulate a response quickly after the Aug. 5 attack. Under the consecutive administrations of Presidents Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, Egypt effectively dealt with violence in Sinai by either bribing Bedouin tribes or using force to eradicate jihadist threats. Two spikes in militant activity occurred in the early 1980s and mid-1990s. Security crackdowns restored peace after these bouts of aggression, but that peace was broken by several jihadist attacks in tourist and resort areas in Sinai between 2004 and 2006. That string of clashes led to a campaign by Egyptian security forces to seek out and arrest or kill those responsible for the violence. Sinai then stayed relatively quiet for another five years; when Mubarak lost power in February 2011, militants began targeting the area once more.
Militants have kidnapped tourists in South Sinai and have attacked gas pipelines leading to Israel with little consequence, but the Aug. 5 attack represented a shift in militant activity — the attack challenged the Egyptian government directly. Morsi made clear Wednesday that the attacks were unacceptable and that he was willing to oversee one of the largest military operations in Sinai in 40 years to prevent them from happening again. Despite the upheaval that has brought Egypt from Mubarak's leadership to that of Morsi, Egypt's policy on security in the Sinai appears to have remained intact.
But deploying the military to chase down militants won't necessarily stop the conflict. The group that has carried out attacks on Egyptian military installations is targeting the Egyptian military and government more overtly than previous groups have. This campaign is more than a collection of random, disruptive assaults or an attempt to extract concessions from the government. It also can't be attributed only to jihadist militants looking to attack Israel. Furthermore, the attacks seem to be executed with a fair amount of skill; overwhelming and killing 15 Egyptian soldiers is no easy task. While this certainly doesn't mean that the group behind the attack is unstoppable, it further distinguishes the operation from the activities of local criminals and armed Sinai Bedouins. The military will be highly motivated to pursue militants that have targeted their own soldiers, but it remains to be seen how the changes in Egypt over the past 18 months will impact the military's ability to pursue and neutralize these militants.
The Sinai Peninsula is not an easy place for militants to conduct a campaign. It is a flat desert offering very little cover. Lack of infrastructure makes it difficult to patrol on the ground, but Sinai is relatively easy to patrol by air, as shown by the success of the helicopter gunship strikes Wednesday morning. Israel has made it clear that it supports Egyptian military strikes against the militants, which means Egypt doesn't have to worry that it will aggravate the Israelis with increased military activity in Sinai — which is technically neutral territory. Fleeing to Israel is not a viable option for militants. Fleeing to the Gaza Strip might be more viable, but Hamas is not eager to take on the liability of hosting a group that has angered both Israel and Egypt. Doing so would invite air strikes from Israel, a cutoff of supplies from Egypt, or both. The militants don't appear to have any obvious advantages in this campaign.
Will the militants continue their aggressive attack on the Egyptian government, or will they be eradicated by a military response, as has happened in the recent past? If they yield to Egyptian military pressure, Egypt's policy on Sinai will stand and Morsi will reinforce the status quo that he was allegedly elected into office to change. Jihadism and militant activity in the Sinai won't die, but it will take a few years to build back up. If this militant group survives the military crackdown and carries out attacks over the coming weeks and months, we potentially have a new dynamic in the Sinai Peninsula that regional powers will have to pay attention to.
