BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

MOKHTAR AWAD
operated mainland networks that were all but destroyed in 2014; in 2015,
these networks were reactivated, and they attempted and carried out attacks
that mainly targeted tourists, foreign nationals, and Western interests. In late
2015, IS-affiliated cells operating in Greater Cairo began to launch armed
assaults and IED attacks in populated areas and against tourists. Thankfully,
due to the operatives’ amateur capabilities, fatalities have been low. They have
demonstrated, nevertheless, an interest in planting IEDs on Cairo’s beltway,
which shows a most certain disregard for potential civilian casualties. This,
too, is a radical departure from the focus of mainland-based militants before
the IS intervention. At minimum, the nature of the attacks shows how these
operatives have fully accepted the IS ideology and tactics; or perhaps it is an
indication of greater direction by IS core leadership, which has less interest
in nurturing the base of popular support for mainland militants and more in
taking advantage of Egypt as another theater into which to project its terror.
IS Sinai and IS Libya have also facilitated increased activity in the Egyptian
Western Desert. In fact, the first-ever attack there, which took place in
July 2014, appears to have been connected to the group’s discussions with IS,
which were ongoing at the time. It was carried out by an expeditionary force
that struck the Farafra checkpoint before moving up to Marsa Matruh, then
back east on the way to Sinai, suggesting the group had no sustained operational
presence then in the Western Desert. The purpose was, perhaps, to
show the group’s ability to hit well outside the Sinai or, more likely, to show
it could operate in an area of strategic significance for IS. Since then, smuggling
activity has increased, as well as reports of small jihadist encampments.
Securing the smuggling routes between Libya and Sinai and having strategic
depth into the Western Desert may benefit IS Sinai, but it serves the interests
of core IS more.
ACTUAL LINKAGES
The full extent of core IS direct operational control over IS Sinai activities
remains unknown. Travel to and from the Sinai remains rather difficult, and
Egyptian authorities have yet to capture any senior non-Egyptian IS leaders
there. What is known is that sometime in fall 2014, some of the local
group’s leaders traveled to meet core IS leaders in Syria and Iraq, something
confirmed by Egypt’s General Intelligence. There are also indications that the
connection between Sinai and core IS grew as Egyptians who fought alongside
IS began to return, some of them perhaps carrying messages and orders
from senior IS leaders.
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