Recalling the Egyptian army's reproduction of the "Awakening" experience in northern Sinai, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi expressed his country's readiness to train and equip Libyan tribes from the supporters of retired Major General Khalifa Hifter.
The term Awakening appeared in Egypt with the intensification of the battles in northern Sinai, where the authority recruited a number of youths from the tribes loyal to the army, and armed them and provided them with military clothes, with the aim of fighting the militants of the "Sinai Province" (Islamic State branch in Egypt), in a reproduction of the experience of the "Awakening of Iraq" Established by the American occupation.
Al-Sisi's call to arm the Libyan tribes came as he inspected the elements of the western military region bordering the Libyan border on June 20, and in the same word, Sisi also called the tribal "mandate" to interfere in Libya, like the famous authorization incident in Egypt after his military coup on July 3. / July 2013, and the subsequent massacres against opponents, where Sisi asked the Egyptians to stage demonstrations to authorize him to fight what he called "potential violence and terror."
Sisi summons to revive the awakening and authorization in Libya coincides with the passage of nearly 7 years since the Egyptian army alliance with tribes loyal to him, who returned with negative results on the cities and villages of northern Sinai and its people, where they were subjected to displacement and killing outside the law and the enforced disappearance of hundreds of them, according to what documents documented Domestic and international rights.
It also renews the talk about the events that occurred in Egypt after the January 2011 revolution in what appeared locally known as the phenomenon of "honorable citizens" or "thugs", as it turned out that they were a tool that was moved before the July 2013 coup, and in subsequent years, especially Against anti-government demonstrations, according to press reports.
In two separate interviews with Al-Jazeera Net, two political experts considered that Sisi’s summoning of the awakening experience and the “tribal mandate” for military intervention in Libya contradicts the idea of the central state that the Egyptian president has long sung and his regime, and comes within the framework of resisting the democratic model, even if at the expense of dividing the people Libyan.
The two experts pointed out that Al-Sisi failed to apply the axioms of the experience in the Sinai, where the tribes were used against each other, in addition to the absence of development, in a way that is closer to colonial policies rather than counterinsurgency.
Colonial Policy
Researcher and specialist in armed groups affairs, Hassan Abu Haniyeh considered that the Awakening model does not contradict the central state in principle if it is part of the counterinsurgency strategy, but he considered that Sisi failed to apply the axioms of the experience in the Sinai.
He explained that reviving the Awakening is based on two parts: one is military, the other is based on winning hearts and minds, and accompanies them in an integrated development process in the rebellion areas, in addition to that its success is subject to great intelligence work, and that it be supportive to armies during hybrid wars, or guerrilla wars, not Classic.
Abu Haniyeh said that the Egyptian army in the Sinai sought to use tribal groups against another, and that there was therefore a very bad use of intelligence work, as these operations are usually inaccurate retaliation.
He pointed out that "all intelligence reports and international studies centers always indicate the failure of the Egyptian army's tactics in all of its operations in the Sinai, where there are less than 700 fighters, and the army appears powerless in front of them, due to its traditional and primitive methods of applying the scorched earth policy."
And about Sisi evoking the experience of arming the tribes in Libya, Abu Haniyeh asked: "Where is Sisi from the intelligence ability in large areas, compared to the Sinai, which is limited and completely besieged."
He added that Al-Sisi's tactics regarding the pro-Haftar tribes of Libya "do not possess - in the sense of gang warfare - the big incubator", noting that "all the armies in Libya collapsed as soon as a group of Turkish experts and Turkish Drones entered."
Resisting the democratic model,
in turn, considered the Egyptian academic and researcher in political science, Mohamed Zawawi, Sisi’s call for reviving the Awakening in Libya, and his talk about a tribal mandate to intervene in favor of Haftar; It comes in the context of his contradictory statements about national security principles.
Al-Zawawi referred to previous statements by Al-Sisi, in which he talked about the army not standing with one faction against another, not using force with the people of Sinai to not create an enemy, and not calling the army in the political struggle, and advised citizens to stand in front of the election boxes instead of the army going to the streets as a killing tool.
And the Egyptian researcher stressed that Al-Sisi "in light of his clear personal ambitions to unite in power, struck with all these constants the width of the wall, and adopted completely the opposite of it," adding, "Then if the resistance of the democratic model in Libya requires him to work to divide the Libyan people and stand against each other, He will not fail. "
He stressed that a successful democratic model in Libya would represent a major threat to the military dictatorial model adopted by Sisi, explaining that Libya is a large area with a small population rich in energy resources, and it has no ethnic, sectarian, or religious problems, and therefore, summoning the tribal conflict is the only way to separate People, and spoil the efforts to create a democratic model in the Egyptian neighborhood.
He added that "the advent of a democratic president - especially if it was an Islamic trend - will be a victory for the axis of revolutions in the region, and then it will be an addition to the axis against anti-authoritarianism in the Arab world.
Tripoli has become the first Arab capital to fall under the Turkish occupation and bet on a decisive Egyptian role, especially the Egyptian army, which is among the 10 strongest armies in the world to deter Erdogan and stop the advance of its mercenaries east, west and south.
- Abdulkhaleq Abdulla (@Abdulkhaleq_UAE) June 6, 2020
Over the past few weeks, the entire Libyan West has been subject to the (internationally recognized) National Accord government, whose appetite has opened for control of the east, after successive losses and military setbacks for Haftar's forces, who had launched an attack on the capital, Tripoli, since April 2019, but Failed to control it.
The defeats of Haftar worried his regional allies, most notably Egypt, where Sisi - driven by the UAE to stop the defeats of the retired general - warned that his country "might intervene militarily in Libya" if government-backed forces from Turkey advanced toward the city of Sirte, of strategic importance.