Al-Sisi from politics to brute force .. and Sinai will have its place

Six years ago, Al-Jazeera TV broadcasted a video recording of the then-Minister of Defense Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, speaking to a group of Egyptian army officers about the best strategy to deal with the armed crisis in North Sinai.

In the video, Al-Sisi talks about the danger of adopting a security solution only, warning against shooting, displacement and destroying homes, which leads to creating enmities and revenge, which is a threat to national security, citing the experience of South Sudan, which resulted in separation due to the wrong security and political dealings.

The years passed, and a lot of water ran into the river, so that the Egyptians could hear Sisi himself, but this time he is president of the republic, and he demands the use of "brute force" in dealing with the attacks of the militants, with only three months to eliminate terrorism.

From political talk to brute force; it seems that the Sinai file - especially its north - has become the most mysterious in Egypt, where the "comprehensive operation Sinai 2018" entered its third year, amid escalating armed attacks, casualties from the police and army, and with warnings from activists and politicians about the lack of The possibility of resolving the crisis in the absence of politics, and in light of security oppression and one voice.

The last of those operations was on Thursday, when the military spokesman announced that an explosive device had exploded with an armored vehicle south of the city of Bir al-Abd (North Sinai), killing one officer and a non-commissioned officer, and eight soldiers were killed and wounded.

While the Egyptian military spokesman did not specify the number of those killed in the bombing, a Facebook page that tracks developments in Sinai reported that the dead were ten soldiers compared to three wounded, and the page published a list of the names of the victims, while activists reported on the networking sites that the explosion occurred before breakfast.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi condemned the attack, saying that "the forces of evil" are trying to kidnap the homeland, adding, "But thanks to God, then thanks to the sons of Egypt and his powerful army, they are standing firm with faith and strength, and are able to break the hopes of these treacherous and insidious souls."

Al-Sisi's talk about the steadfastness prompted the journalist, Gamal Sultan, to ask: "Is this a decent expression? Is Egypt and its army surrounded by a fragmentation of several hundred terrorists and on the defensive?"

Sultan's question comes in light of successive assurances announced by the Egyptian authorities about their success in eliminating terrorism, and that what remains are just remnants of their last days.

But the leader of the "Karama" party, Amin Iskandar, did not stop at Sisi's talk about steadfastness, but went to criticize the absence of politics from the Sinai crisis, stressing that Egypt will not be able to confront in the absence of freedom and close the public sphere.

The opposition politician asked: "How can we face terrorism and Egypt free from politics, thought and opinions, no media, no parties, no dialogue, the authority of one and only? How do we resist terrorism and Egypt in prison and restricted to the degree of paralysis, and Egypt without perception, no project, no education, no culture, no development except Projects for construction companies?

In turn, the director of the Cairo Center for Human Rights, Bahi El-Din Hassan, compared the numbers of victims of armed attacks during the era of Sisi with her counterpart in the era of former President Hosni Mubarak, as he drew at civilian victims inside and outside Sisi prisons.

And many politicians and writers have called for some - some of them supporters of the authority - for a political approach, not just security, to solve the Sinai crisis and eliminate military operations, including comprehensive development and stopping violations and discrimination against the people of Sinai.

In his speech during the opening of some infrastructure projects last April, Al-Sisi said, "The state spent 600 billion pounds (about 40 billion dollars) on the development of the Sinai Peninsula."

But former head of the Dispute Resolution Committee, Hossam Fawzy Gabr, said that "the one who looks at the situation in Sinai from 1952 to the present day finds that all that is said about the development of Sinai is for media promotion, and just hollow phrases that do not reflect a tangible reality."

In turn, human rights activist Haitham Abu Khalil warned against "the forced disappearance of some of the disappeared," claiming that they were involved in the incident, and stressed that the solution to that crisis is "accountability and departure of those who want to continue violence and killing among the components of one people and the continuation of the cycle of revenge."

In previous statements to Al-Jazeera Net, the researcher in the Egyptian military affairs, Mahmoud Gamal, saw that the army's focus on military operations created an incubator among the people of Sinai, calling for changing the security strategy used in the Sinai, because it did not achieve any successes, on the contrary, the army's losses multiplied, and more The dead are among the qualified officers.

Communication sites witnessed a state of grief over the victims of the accident, and many supporters and opponents of the authority gathered to condemn him.

The pioneers of the networking sites circulated flyers for two of the victims of the accident, explaining that they were opposed to the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Tweeters of these publications cited the presence of many soldiers and officers who were not in favor of Sisi and his policies, but who were forced to serve in the army and the police.

It is worth noting that Human Rights Watch in May 2019 called for an international investigation into what it described as mutual violations between the Egyptian army and militants in the Sinai Peninsula, considering that what is happening there is a "non-international armed conflict", and that some violations are "war crimes" It can amount to crimes against humanity. "