Exclusive investigation: wars of Hell in Sinai .. Is the Egyptian army breached?

The investigation conducted by Al-Jazeera under the title "Sinai, the wars of tranquility" presented testimonies and documents related to the field realities in the Sinai, revealing some of the tracks of war between the Egyptian army and the branch of state organization in the Sinai, the roles of tribal militias close to the army, .

The team, which has completed the investigation, continues to investigate various sources familiar with some of the details of the complex Sinai scene, including military personnel, some of whom have served in the Sinai in recent years, some of whom are active tribal elements in armed tribal militias.

Is the army hacked?
The al-Jazeera investigation raised major questions about the hypothesis that the state organization in the Sinai state could penetrate the Egyptian army and the security services operating there, and cited many examples and evidence that raised this hypothesis and contributed to its reinforcement.

The Egyptian journalist and researcher Abu Bakr Khallaf (during the investigation) reported some evidence of this, including the targeting of the aircraft of the Egyptian interior and defense ministers while they were on a secret visit to El-Arish. The pilot of Muhammad Rifat al-Mandawah, and also killed Lieutenant Colonel Ismail al-Shihabi.

He was accompanied by Brig. Gen. Amr Salih, a police dean, who was in a civilian car and was targeted. He was accompanied by Brigadier General Amr Salih, a police chief, who was killed and killed on 25 July 2014 when he was returning from work. And killed them.

The investigation was prolonged at the time of the ambush, as the first thread, and the process that opened a door of speculation about the organization's ability to draw accurate information about the army, police and internal mapping of those forces to enable direct and effective strikes.

The process also highlighted the idea of ​​arming some of the Sinai tribes, which the Egyptian army resorted to in order to confront the state organization, similar to the experience of the US military in Iraq in 2007 in the formation of Awakening Councils.

Splits
The documents and testimonies presented in the investigation proved that four security establishment officers from the Special Operations Forces belonging to the Ministry of the Interior were disbanded and joined the State Organization in the Sinai.

These documents showed that the dissidents joined the organization while carrying out a mission in the Sinai under the supervision of the army, although it is assumed that these officers were subjected to intellectual rehabilitation against extremism, which indicates a major imbalance in the Egyptian security system in Sinai.

The investigation also revealed that an army officer serving in the Sinai revealed the disregard of the army operations room for the distress calls when there were some attacks on a military barracks south of Rafah.

An Egyptian military officer who served in Sinai told the investigation team that he was hiding his identity. Most of the cases we heard about her joining the organization were motivated by malicious and repulsive behavior, either by separating the officer from his job or by problems with one of his subordinates or, It is not usually based on conviction of the ideas of the organization.

The story of one of the officers, a major named Walid Sherpas, was arrested by the military intelligence and spread his experience among individuals and soldiers, when investigations proved that he had a relationship with the militants, and leaked information about one of the commanders in the battalion, named Ahmed Shaaban.

As a result of his cooperation with the militants, they managed - according to this source - to ambush him and kill him on his way to Sheikh Zwaid. Investigations later proved that "the reason for his cooperation with the terrorists is due to his differences with the officers and the lieutenant Ahmed Shaaban.

While many military spokesmen refused to respond to the investigation team's questions, Hussein Abdel Razek, of the infantry force, denied in a communication with al-Jazeera the existence of such cases, and described them as empty talk, although he did not rule out individual cases for considerations related to the circumstances of the owner.

Tribal militias
The investigation was halted by tribal militias formed in the Sinai with the support of the army to confront the state's armed forces in the Sinai. In April 2017, the army moved from tribal elements to help form them in armed groups in the form of a militia to fight the organization.

Abu Salem Turbani, a leading member of the armed tribal groups, said that the establishment of the tribal forces was initially a reaction to the state organization burning large quantities of cigarettes belonging to the tribal traders who smuggle them into the Gaza Strip.

He said that the smuggling of cigarettes was not welcome by the state organization, they broke into the cigarette market and burned tons of cigarettes, cars and vehicles loaded with cigarettes, which created a war called the war of cigarettes in a timely manner.

The investigation revealed that one of the most prominent leaders of the armed tribal militias in the Sinai Ibrahim al-Arajani, who is a smuggling trade in the Sinai, belongs to the Tribe tribe, and has close relations with the intelligence service, and close to President Abdel-Fattah Sisi, and appeared with him more than once.

Salem Lafi is one of the most famous smugglers in the Sinai. He belongs to the tribe of Tarabin and is sentenced to several previous criminal cases. The former commander of tribal militias backed by the army, and was killed in an armed attack to organize the state south of Rafah.

Among the leaders of these tribal militias is Musa al-Dalh, who belongs to the tribe of Trabin, a smuggler and principal partner of Ibrahim al-Arjani in several projects for the Egyptian Armed Forces Engineering Corps. He was sentenced in several previous criminal cases and led the armed militias after the death of Salim Lafi.

Dead and operations
According to the information contained in the investigation, the Egyptian army in the Sinai during the period between 2014 and 2018 to about a thousand armed attack, which killed about two thousand officers and soldiers, and more than three thousand injured, according to the average figures mentioned in the Egyptian army data and state regulation Sinai.

The military operation launched by the army this year was not the first in the Sinai. For the past 80 months, it carried out two major military campaigns in different stages of time. The first was Operation Nesher, which began its first phase in August 2011 after targeting gunmen Jihadists from Ansar al-Maqdis - headquarters of the Egyptian police and the detonation of gas lines exported to Israel.

In August 2012, the second phase of the operation was launched after an armed attack on an Egyptian military post on the border with Israel. In the midst of this operation, the supporters of Jerusalem announced the allegation of statehood in Iraq and Syria in November 2014, Sinai under the name of the state of Sinai.

With the intensification of battles between the Egyptian army and the state organization in the Sinai, the army launched another military operation in September 2015 called the "Martyr's Right", carried out in four stages, and ended with the announcement by the army in February of the launch of the "comprehensive operation".