CTC Sentinel 8:3 (March 2015)

AUGUST 2015. Vol 8. Issue 8 Contents Bayà Remorse? Wilayat Sinai 1 Bayà Remorse? Wilayat Sinai and the and the Nile Valley Nile Valley By Mokhtar Awad and Samuel Tadros 7 A View from the CT Foxhole: An Interview with Alain Grignard, Brussels Federal Police By Paul Cruickshank 10 Wilayat West Africa Reboots for the Caliphate By Jacob Zenn 17 Governing the Caliphate: The Islamic State Picture By Laith Alkhouri and Alex Kassirer 21 Al-Muhajiroun’s European Recruiting Pipeline By Raffaello Pantucci A policeman guards the Italian Consulate in Cairo after a powerful bomb attack. MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/ GETTY IMAGES 25 Islamic State Affiliates By Mokhtar Awad and Samuel Tadros Press Hamas became apparent that the attack had By Samar Batrawi t was early morning on Saturday, instead targeted the Italian consulate, I July 11, 2015 when Cairo awoke to a rather soft diplomatic target. More 28 CTC Sentinel Staff & Contacts the sound of a huge explosion. Coming significant than the target, however, just 12 days after the assassination of was the quickly released statement Prosecutor General Hesham Barakat, claiming responsibility. Instead of a and ten days after a massive assault claim by Wilayat Sinai, the Islamic on the city of Sheikh Zuwaid by State mother organization itself took Wilayat Sinai, the Islamic State’s local the credit.2 affiliate, residents feared the country’s widening terrorist insurgency had The following month in the early About the CTC Sentinel claimed another high-ranking official hours of August 20 residents in north The Combating Terrorism Center is an in the heart of mainland Egypt.1 It soon independent educational and research institution based in the Department of Social city. More sophisticated weapons like Russian Kornet Sciences at the United States Military Academy, 1 The so-called Wilayat Sinai has proven itself to be the antitank missiles are also increasingly in use since the West Point. The CTC Sentinel harnesses sole and uncontested jihadi actor in North Sinai. The pledge with one likely used in hitting a naval vessel off the Center’s global network of scholars and group has steadily evolved in both its capacity and focus the coast of Rafah. There remains no reliable numbers practitioners to understand and confront since 2011—from blowing up gas pipelines leading to on the size of the group but its large-scale attacks sug- contemporary threats posed by terrorism and Israel to large-scale assaults aimed at degrading the gest at least 500 fighters. See Omar Ashour, “Wilayat other forms of political violence. Egyptian Army’s grip over the Peninsula. About 40 Sinai: the military rise and the political implications,” Al percent of all security force deaths in North Sinai since Jazeera Center for Studies, July 29, 2015; Yasmin Faruki, the Muslim Brotherhood’s ouster from power in July Jenna Gowell, and Laura Hoffman, “ISIS’s Wilayat Sinai The views expressed in this report are those of 2013 occurred after Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis’s pledge of al- launches major offensive in Sheikh Zuwaid,” Institute the authors and not of the U.S. Military Academy, legiance to Islamic State in November 2014. Since then, for the Study of War, July 2, 2015; Bill Roggio, “Islamic the Department of the Army, or any other agency the group has carried out increasingly lethal attacks State strikes Egyptian naval vessel off Sinai coast,” Long of the U.S. Government. with the latest assault on Sheikh Zuwaid being the most War Journal, July 16, 2015. daring with its apparent attempt to hold sections of the 2 Caleb Weiss, “Islamic State detonates car bomb AUGUST 2015. VOL 8. ISSUE 8 Cairo awoke once again to a terrifying jihadism in its most radical from: the history beyond the required defenses of explosion. This time the target was a Islamic State. Egypt’s eastern gate to the Levant. State Security building on the northern- most edge of the Cairo metropolis, Understanding the complex dynamics Modern Egypt would prove no different. and once again Islamic State took that first allowed ABM to grow into a The Suez Canal created a geographic responsibility for the attack not Wilayat national-level actor, the reality of a barrier to cement the psychological Sinai.3 fragmented and diverse jihadi landscape one. Egypt proper ended at the shores in the Nile Valley, and the possibility of of the Canal; what was beyond was of This raises significant questions growing competition in Egypt between little interest. Four wars with Israel in regarding why the Islamic State would the Islamic State and al-Qaìda helps the Sinai left its imprint in the Egyptian directly claim, and presumably conduct explain the state of affairs today both collective imagination as a place of this attack and whether something inside the Wilayat Sinai and the overall national honor— but also a land of war was amiss in the relationship between Egyptian jihadi landscape. This article and trouble, its Bedouins suspected the Islamic State in Raqqa and its argues that early assumptions about of dissimilarity at best, treason at Egyptian affiliate? Reports had after Wilayat Sinai need to be corrected worst. Sinai’s return to Egyptian all indicated back in November 2014, and that by declaring allegiance to sovereignty in 1982 changed little. when Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM), the Islamic State, the jihadi group has Though the peninsula’s south quickly or Supporters of Jerusalem, gave its complicated its ability to maintain and proved lucrative for a growing tourism allegiance to self-proclaimed Caliph, extend its operations in the Nile Valley industry, the north remained neglected Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that not all of and “go national.” with the worst of the civil service its members were enthusiastic about and teachers sent there as a form of becoming the organization’s Wilayat Rather than making a “leap” from the punishment. Sinai. Perhaps these fissures had Sinai desert by dispatching operatives widened and the group would return to west of the Suez after the July 2013 coup It was in the north that a jihadi cell the al-Qaìda umbrella. Or perhaps this that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood-led formed at the turn of the century. Prior meant that a new branch was about to government, the group became involved to 2004, the only terrorist attacks in the be announced in mainland Egypt by the in “mainland” Egypt by cooperating Sinai were directed against Israelis and Islamic State. The Egyptian press had with Nile Valley-based operatives and carried out by men like Suleiman Khater been abuzz in previous months with groups, who reached out to them as early and Ayman Hassan, renegade Egyptian news of the awaited announcement of as 2011. The jihadism of the mainland, military officers originally from the Islamic State Wilayat el Sa’eed (Egypt’s even under the banner of ABM, was Nile Valley who had once served in the southern governorates).4 It was hardly and still is largely carried out by cells Sinai. This time was different. Early a coincidence that the Islamic State had indigenous to the Egyptian heartlands, members belonged to the tribal mosaic only granted ABM the title of Wilayat who are struggling to resurrect the lost of al-Arish and Sheikh Zuwaid. Salafi Sinai and not Wilayat Ard el-Kinana jihad of the 1990s. tenets and jihadi discourses imported (Egypt) indicating the potential for from the Nile Valley had been carried more than one affiliate in Egypt.5 Origins by the train of modernization. Teachers From 2004 to 2006, a series of attacks sent from the mainland carrying the Tracing the growth of Wilayat Sinai targeting Red Sea tourist resorts in radical ideology were supplemented by from its obscure origins to its emergence south Sinai left at least 145 people dead. native sons who had crossed the Suez as the main jihadi threat to Egypt Terrorism was back in Egypt following Canal to study at its universities. sheds light on its continued struggle to seven years of relative quiet after the balance its local environment in Sinai notorious 1997 Luxor massacre and the The North Sinai cell was called al- with its aim of transcending Sinai and subsequent renunciation of violence by Tawhid wa al-Jihad (Monotheism and dominating the Egyptian jihadi scene, Egypt’s then leading terrorist group Jihad). Three men emerged as its early all while linking to transnational Gama’a Islamiya. The Sinai Peninsula, leaders. Khaled Mosa’id, from al- long isolated from jihadi developments Sawarka tribe graduated from Zagazig in the mainland, was now at the University in 1999 and worked as forefront of the jihadi revival. a dentist in al-Arish where he gave religious lessons at al-Malayha mosque. outside Italian consulate in Cairo,” Long War Journal, Despite being a part of Egypt since the In Zagazig he had befriended the half July 12, 2015. time of the Pharaohs, the Sinai Peninsula Bedouin Nasr Khamis el-Malahy who 3 “Egyptian security building in Cairo rocked by bomb had always felt closer to Gaza, Jaffa, was studying law and would later move blast,” BBC, August 20, 2015. Acre, and the Negev desert than Cairo. to al-Arish and give religious lessons at 4 Lutfi Salman, “Da’esh members announce the ap- Trade, and tribal ties, held Sinai’s gaze al-Tawfik mosque. The third was Salem proaching of the formation of wilayet el Sa’eed,” El to the north east. Sinai had been too Khedr el-Shanoub who became the Watan, April 29, 2015. scarcely populated and its Bedouin group’s military commander, providing 5 For more on ABM’s oath of allegiance to the Islamic population too distinct from that of the members with training on weapons and State see Nelly Lahoud, “The Province of Sinai: Why Nile Valley to merit any attention from bomb making.

Load more