BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

SINAI PROVINCE
This route has become increasingly restricted. Once military operations
began near them, the borders became better controlled. Israel built an electronic
barrier wall with cameras on the border in an attempt to crack down on
human traffickers, and security forces have captured many of these smugglers,
destroying the stores and homes they used to imprison and torture migrants.
Nevertheless, the remaining migrants have fallen into the trap of joining
IS militants in Sinai, who claim to have freed them from the clutches
of human traffickers by force of arms. IS members give them money and
training and brainwash them with extremist ideology to wage jihad against
infidels so they can enter heaven. The recruits are then featured in IS’s video
recordings posted online, announcing their intention to carry out attacks or
suicide bombings against the army and police forces in Sinai. These migrants
feel they have no alternatives; they are wanted in Egypt for illegally entering
the country, and they can no longer enter Israel.
Because of its proximity to Gaza, IS in Sinai has also drawn a number
of Palestinians. After Hamas cracked down on jihadist groups and adherents
of takfiri thought (accusing other Muslims of heresy) in Gaza—most
prominently, at the Ibn Taymiyyah Mosque—many of those implicated fled
to Sinai through tunnels, aided by the freedom of movement permitted by
the mountainous and desert terrain.
A lack of education, decaying sense of culture, decline of tribal elders’ roles,
and the high number of adherents to their takfiri ideology following the Taba
attacks in 2004 drew followers to the views of these extremists. This new
nucleus for their ideas included both Egyptians and Palestinians, who were
fueled by the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Egyptian security forces’ dealings in
Sinai, and the relatively lawless environment after 2011. The extremists trained
groups of Sinai Bedouin in new tactics and weapons use, such as how to carry
out hit-and-run operations and how to exhaust regular military forces.
This group also brought in large quantities of weapons and cars smuggled
from Libya and Sudan into Sinai and the Gaza Strip to sell, which earned it a
lot of money. From time to time, security forces arrest Palestinians from various
cities of northern Sinai who have illegally entered the country through
tunnels or whose stay has expired without their returning to the Gaza Strip.
FUNDING
Islamist militants in Sinai rely on multiple sources of funding. Smuggling
operations in Sinai provided a major source of income before the January
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