Counterinsurgency: Not an Arab Specialty by Florence Gaub

20 2015 Hadi Mizban/AP/SIPA Mizban/AP/SIPA Hadi Counterinsurgency: not an Arab specialty by Florence Gaub

The Arab War on Terror is in full swing. Never A non-military task before has the region seen as many terrorist networks, guerrilla groups, and militias fight- To begin with, counterinsurgency is counterin- ing against governments as now. In Egypt, Iraq, tuitive in military terms: using violence to coun- Algeria, and Yemen, central governments are ter violence does not usually yield the desired struggling with insurgencies of one type or an- results. Although insurgents make use of, inter other, with Western governments providing tacit alia, snipers, kidnappings and suicide bomb- or overt support. ings, their prospects of achieving outright military victory are dim – as are the chances of the Unfortunately, Arab states are not good at coun- central government of successfully rooting them terinsurgency. Egypt’s Sinai campaign has now out. Even where the military manages to crush entered its fourth unsuccessful year; Yemen’s an insurgency temporarily – as colonial France Houthis have come back with a vengeance after did during its 1957 Bataille d’Alger – more insur- a decade in which six military campaigns were gents are created in the process. Short-term vic- waged against them; Algeria fought an outright tories, therefore, do not translate into long-term war against Islamist networks in the 1990s but stability. In fact, several of the ongoing insurgen- never won it completely – terrorist activities in the cies today in the Arab world – be it in Algeria, Maghreb not only continued in the 2000s, they Yemen or Iraq – are the direct products of previ- are on the rise again. Years of training and $25 ous counterinsurgency operations. billion in aid failed to produce an Iraqi security force capable of eradicating, or even containing, In order to successfully conduct a counterin- a proto-state organisation like the Islamic State surgency operation often anything but violence of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). And the Libyan is required. Based on its lessons in Vietnam and and Syrian armed forces failed to quell the upris- Iraq, the US government counterinsurgency ings against the respective regimes. guide points out that ‘unlike conventional war- fare, non-military means are often the most ef- So why is it that counterinsurgency appears to fective elements, with military forces playing be so difficult for governments in the Middle an enabling role’. This is because, in contrast East and North Africa? to inter-state war, an insurgency is not a battle

European Union Institute for Security Studies June 2015 1 over resources or territory, but over the relation- However, the counterinsurgency proved to be ship between the governed and the governing. unsustainable. After the American withdrawal Quelling an insurgency means not only neutral- in 2011, political frustration in both Sunni and ising the insurgents, but also addressing the root Shia camps boiled over. Promises to integrate political causes of the crisis and avoiding the ex- Sunnis into the Iraqi security forces in exchange cessive use of force. for fighting ISIL went unmet; de-Baathification by a largely Shia leadership continued unabat- Arab states often struggle, at the political lev- ed; peaceful demonstrations against the govern- el, to settle domestic conflicts with the major- ment were met with violence; and tribal leaders ity using diplomatic means; and, at the military were discredited when Baghdad failed to deliver level, to neutralise the insurgent minority with on jobs. Sunnis subsequently became a recruit- the necessary finesse so as to protect the civilian ment pool for ISIL to tap into. With regard to population at large. Insurgents must be carefully the Shia, the supposedly disbanded Mahdi Army separated from the surrounding (and potentially began to regain power after its leader, Muqtada enabling) population: a failure to do so will only al-Sadr, returned from his self-imposed exile in generate more recruits. Iran in 2011. While its reincarnation, the Peace Brigades, now fight ISIL, Sadr has made it no Insurgency: politics by other means secret that he is willing to use them against the central government should he feel compelled to In many Arab countries, politics is a zero-sum so. game whereby whoever is in power will mo- nopolise resources, as well as the political space, Yemen is another example: the current insurgency and exclude antagonists of any type. More often is related to a previous one dating back to 1962. than not, Arab insurgencies are the result of such Then, an Egypt-supported rebellion ousted the exclusion from the political space, and reflect a centuries-old Zaidi Shia Imamate (which, in a lack of other channels through which to criticise twist of history, was supported by Saudi Arabia) the central government. Extended to the military and established a militarised political system – sphere, this means that insurgencies will be ap- which then went on to marginalise those in the proached with the same ‘winner takes it all’ men- largely Shia area the Houthis hail from. tality: opponents are to be crushed rather than convinced. When Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, Iraq is one such exam- ‘Arab states often struggle, at the a cleric, founded a ple. Since the toppling political level, to settle domestic conflicts theological move- of Saddam Hussein in ment with anti-gov- 2003, the country has with the majority using diplomatic ernmental tones in the lived through several 1990s, Sana’a saw it as insurgencies simulta- means; and, at the military level, to an attempt to reverse neously; between 2003 neutralise the insurgent minority with the events of 1962. and 2007, at least four Attempts to arrest different types of in- the necessary finesse so as to protect the him in 2004 triggered surgents fought the civilian population at large.’ an insurgency largely government and the rooted in northern international troops Yemeni/Shia frustra- stationed there. These included former Baathists, tion with the central government. However, six Sunni jihadist networks, Iraqi nationalists and military campaigns against the Houthis have Shia militias. failed to produce lasting stability: while Yemen’s military managed to reduce the Houthis’ capaci- Levels of violence were reduced considerably ties, it failed to eradicate the root causes which because several of the insurgent groups were co- led to the insurgency in the first place. opted politically: Sunnis from the Anbar province decided to join an American campaign against A ceasefire in 2010 did not hold because Houthis what was then the Islamic State in Iraq, while continued to be excluded from Yemen’s political Shia militias such as the Mahdi Army disarmed system, even after President Saleh was ousted under a ceasefire-like agreement with the gov- in 2011. Though often presented as a sectarian ernment. This, in turn, allowed the Iraqi security conflict, Yemen’s insurgency is at heart a rebel- forces to focus their efforts on the Baathists and lion over Sana’a’s legitimacy. There is no military jihadist networks. solution to the ongoing crisis: the Houthis need

European Union Institute for Security Studies June 2015 2 a political way out. At the moment, however, peace treaty with Israel – mean that Egypt has neither the government of President Hadi nor little control over an already fluid and hostile his military backers in Saudi Arabia are inclined population. to compromise. From the early 2000s onwards, jihadist net- Eating soup with a knife works – which had re-emerged in the 1990s on Egypt’s mainland – began to operate in this As noted by T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), himself environment. Several terrorist attacks against a participant in the Arab insurgency against the tourist targets were met with sweeping punitive Ottoman Empire, the fight against insurgents measures such as the arrest of family members “is messy and slow, like eating soup with a of terrorists and holding them as ‘hostages’. In knife”. Counterinsurgencies are messy because the years between the attacks and the toppling they require infantry-based operations to take of Mubarak, relations between the security place amidst the civilian population; and they forces and the population in the Sinai deterio- are slow because they rated sharply. In 2008, involve the gradual for example, Bedouins separation of rebels ‘One way or the other, simply abducted 25 police- from civilians. In or- eliminating the insurgents is not enough. men following deadly der to combat the in- clashes at a demon- surgents, armed forces Their existence is always related to the stration, and attacks can adopt either an on gas pipelines in- ‘enemy-centric’ ap- society in which they are embedded, and creased. proach, which focuses has therefore – by default – a political on either killing the In 2011, the insurgen- opponents and pun- component at least tacitly shared by the cy re-emerged with ishing the population general population.’ a vengeance. While for aiding them, or a the armed forces were ‘population-centric’ busy trying to manage approach, which starves the rebels of their sup- the security situation in Cairo, attacks against port network by convincing civilians to not as- police stations, military installations and energy sist them. infrastructure multiplied, as did kidnappings of tourists. Militants also crossed into Israel One way or the other, simply eliminating the to perpetrate attacks. The problem with the insurgents is not enough. Their existence is al- Sinai insurgency, like in Iraq, is that it involves ways related to the society in which they are not one but several overlapping networks and embedded, and has therefore – by default – a grievances. The jihadist component, which con- political component at least tacitly shared by sists of some 2,000 militants, is embedded in the general population. a Bedouin population of 300,000. While both groups share the desire to inflict damage on the One example of a population turning against government, their motives for doing so differ the government over a poorly-conducted coun- markedly. terinsurgency campaign is Egypt. Attempts to sedentarise the Sinai’s largely Bedouin popula- Two subsequent military campaigns – Operation tion and curb their illicit networks turned them Eagle and Operation Sinai – have not managed to against the central government in the 1980s. quell the insurgency in spite of the deployment North Sinai is one of the poorest governorates of several thousand special forces – exceeding of Egypt: Bedouins cannot join the armed forc- the agreed limit imposed by the Camp David es, it is difficult for them to purchase land, and Accords but agreed to by Israel. For Egypt’s se- they were excluded from the emerging tourism curity forces to eradicate the jihadist networks, industry on the Red Sea. they will have to separate the Bedouins from the insurgents – an effort which requires lo- That the majority of security personnel on the cal knowledge of both the region’s population peninsula are from the mainland only reinforc- and its geography (neither of which they seem es a sense of segregation and the Bedouin per- to have). Although the campaign’s rhetorical ception that the Egyptian presence in the Sinai commitment to ‘care [for] and respect’ the lo- is in fact an occupation, akin to that of Israel cal population is designed to ‘win hearts and after the 1967 war. In addition, limits on troop minds’, the destruction last year of over 800 numbers in the Sinai – in accordance with the houses, the displacement of over 10,000 people

European Union Institute for Security Studies June 2015 3 and the disruption of illicit economic activities turning into al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have achieved the opposite. (AQIM). At the heart of the problem stands the nega- The Algerian military has continued its cam- tive mainland perception of Sinai Bedouins. In paign since then, but has been unable to eradi- the 2012 movie Al-Maslaha (The Goods), for cate the problem completely: in early 2013, instance, the Bedouin character, Salim, is de- terrorists loosely affiliated to AQIM stormed a picted as a lazy, brutal drug-smuggler, whereas gas facility, causing 39 casualties. Today, AQIM his opponent, Hamza, is a kind, hard-working is said to have grown to about 1,000 fighters, and loyal police officer. Egypt’s military is fail- in spite of Algeria’s success in inflicting major ing on the human terrain because they perceive damage to its infrastructure and capabilities. the population to be part of the problem rather However, Algeria’s military has learned that if than the solution. it wants to keep AQIM at bay, it needs to shield the civilian population from violence – or more Losing hearts and minds potential recruits will be created in the process. Algeria had to learn the limits of countering violence with violence the hard way in the 1990s. The cost of counterinsurgency Its insurgency erupted in 1992 after the armed forces cancelled the first national democratic Most Arab states suffering from a form of in- elections once polls indicated that Islamist par- surgency not only share a political culture of ties were projected to win. As Islamist guerrilla exclusion and a military conviction that hitting groups formed all over the country, the military hard will achieve the desired results – they also targeted the parties’ supporters, arresting hun- operate with severe resource constraints, limit- dreds and cracking down hard on demonstra- ing their effective capacity to reach out to the tors. A far-reaching counterterrorism law and populations they are trying to separate from the imposition of a curfew gave the regime the the insurgents. Improving local services, for in- necessary breathing space to combat the insur- stance, was an important element of American gents. But after what appeared initially to be a counterinsurgency in Iraq. And the lack of jobs government victory, the insurgency came back plays an important role in feeding the insur- even stronger in 1994. gencies in both the Sinai and northern Iraq. In an ever-increasing spiral of violence, both But since Arab leaders are already navigating in the regime and the insurgents managed to lose economically dire straits, it will be nearly im- the hearts and minds of the Algerian popula- possible – not to say counterintuitive in their tion. In areas where Islamists imposed harsh minds – to throw money at a problem that is rules and extorted money from the civilians perceived, first and foremost, as a security is- under their control, they lost the support of the sue. (previously sympathetic) pious middle class. Wherever government units indiscriminately targeted civilians, they created more hostility, Florence Gaub is a Senior Analyst at the as can be read in the 2001 account by a former EUISS. special forces officer, titledThe Dirty War. Soon, the levels of violence perpetrated by both sides had generated the phrase “qui tue qui en Algerie” (“who is killing whom in Algeria”). The insurgency finally died down in the early 2000s after as many as 150,000 people had been killed: a combination of military pres- sure against the jihadists and two laws granting amnesty to repentant insurgents depleted the pool of fighters. However, the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat) managed to retreat into the mountains with its approximately 300 fighters and has continued to perpetrate attacks. In 2006, it swore allegiance to al-Qaeda,

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