Does Corona give the kiss of life to the Islamic State in Sinai?

Mahmoud Refaat - Cairo

With Egypt and its army preoccupied with confronting the emerging corona virus (Covid-19), there has been increasing talk about the opportunities for the Islamic State to recover and restore its position in the Egyptian North Sinai Governorate.

In this regard, an Egyptian study warned that the Islamic State is good at exploiting events such as the Corona pandemic, after its recent collapse in both Syria and Iraq, and was further aggravated by the killing of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

An Israeli study also went on to say that the Islamic State will return to the scene again, and this will appear in the form of an increasing number of attacks, with governments focusing on the threat of the virus, and alleviating military pressure on terrorist movements.

But two experts - one military and one political, linked the chances of repositioning the "terrorist" organization in the Sinai, in light of the regional and international preoccupation with confronting Corona, and using it as an "intelligence phenomenon" by some countries to reactivate it again, whether in Sinai or others.

On the other hand, the aggravation of the virus crisis and its global spread prompted the organization of the state to advise its followers to take care and prevention to avoid infection, and to stay away from Europe as a land of the epidemic.

The appetite of extremism
According to a study titled "ISIS in the Time of Corona," Mustafa Zahran, a researcher in Islamic groups affairs, said that "terrorist currents - headed by the Islamic State - are used to not be isolated from the context around them, and with every failure they seek to reposition again, by employing Emergency transformations in its local and regional surroundings.

The study published by "That same Misr Foundation for Studies and Research" indicated that the transformations that resulted from the emergence of corona from destabilizing the political, security and economic stability of a large number of countries in the world stimulated the organization's appetite to redraw its future strategy again, which was shown in the mobilization of its fighters to seize the current moment Escalating.

In Egypt, the government's efforts are currently focused on dealing with the epidemic, in light of the significantly increased cases of the virus, which reached 1450 cases and 94 deaths as of Monday evening.

The hypothesis of the previous proposition is also reinforced by the fact that the spread of the Ebola virus in some regions of Africa in 2017 did not affect the activity of the Islamic State in those areas.

It is noteworthy that the organization has received a series of harsh strikes by the Egyptian army, with the launch of a large-scale security campaign since February 2018 in Egypt, especially north of Sinai.

While the organization’s strikes in recent years focused on military and security targets and infrastructure that affected the flow of gas between Egypt and Israel, and security confrontations with armed elements in Sinai did not stop for the past two months, according to official data.

Israeli fears
With the spread of the virus globally, the Israeli National Security Institute in Tel Aviv published analyzes of the Middle East after Corona, in which it monitored ten strategic concerns and scenarios that could occur in the region, including the expansion of the Islamic State in the Sinai.

It is reported that the Israeli government relies in the security and strategic areas on the "Institute for National Security Studies", which is one of the most important centers for security studies in Israel, and is affiliated with Tel Aviv University.

The study predicts that "ISIS will return to the scene, and this will appear in the form of an increasing number of attacks," claiming that the long anticipated time and political instability in various countries, with governments focusing on the virus risk, will reduce military pressure on the organization.

"In that momentum, ISIS will be able to obtain new land in various places, including Sinai," according to the study.

Intelligence dimensions
On the other hand, the Egyptian military expert, Major General Talaat Muslim, questioned the Israeli study, stressing that it has "intelligence dimensions", and stressed in press statements that it does not agree with the idea of ​​having influence areas for terrorist elements, because his country is currently on its way to completely eliminate the Islamic State.

And he warned that the study aimed at greater security dimensions of the organization, which he considered "one of the arms of Israel and the United States in the region, and aims to achieve colonial interests."

On his country's handling of the Corona crisis and the pursuit of terrorist elements in Sinai, he said that these are things that the priorities require, explaining, "If the expansion of the Islamic State comes with an Israeli expansion, then the priority for Egypt is confronting and confronting terrorism, even at the expense of dealing with the Corona virus."

He agreed with the previous proposal, the head of the Center for Middle East Studies in Jordan, Jawad Al-Hamad, regarding the opportunities to reposition the "terrorist" organization in Sinai, in light of the preoccupation with facing the crisis of the Corona virus.

He said in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net that "the state organization is an intelligence phenomenon, and any intelligence related to it may exploit any circumstance to reproduce this phenomenon and activate it in any way."

As for the Israeli studies on the organization of the state and terrorism, Al-Hamad affirmed that she lacks friendship and accuracy, and that it is also directed security for political purposes against the Arab and Islamic world.

In this regard, he pointed out that "a country like Israel takes scenarios, possibilities and expectations to direct Western and global policies away from logical and realistic possibilities, while noting that Israel has not suffered from IS terrorism at all."

However, he demanded that scientific precaution be taken in the study of intercontinental phenomena, mobile rapidly, and mobile in a remarkable way.