Sinai Attack: Terror act or crime of (an undeclared) war?

International abhorrence, ecumenical condemnation, and worldwide messages of support followed, as expected, the worst terror attack in Egypt’s history. Many rightly wonder what could cause so much hatred as to drive a group of people to bomb a place of worship and then gun down indiscriminately anything that moves with the exclusive goal to create as many casualties as possible. Many also raise questions regarding the ease with which the operation was planned and carried out, the successful escape of the perpetrators and their access to guns and ammunition. Sadly, no matter how incomprehensible may the events of Bir al-Abed seem to us, the attack against the Sufi mosque of al-Rawda was hardly an isolated incident that took place in vacuum. On the contrary, it is part of a wider context that started taking shape many years ago.
All the signs indicate that the attack was orchestrated and implemented by radical Islamists who have pledged allegiance to the so called Islamic State. Yet, the utility of swearing loyalty to al-Baghdadi should be associated more with an effort to render a local insurgency with the necessary ideological cloak, and less with a genuine attempt to enter a pan-Islamic crusade with central command and agenda. To this attests the fact that in Sinai, contrary to what has been the case in Syria and Iraq, the bulk of the militants are not foreign fighters but originate from the local tribes. Moreover, the nature of the attack, meaning the targeting of a mosque built adjacent to a shrine of a Sufi scholar should not take us aback. For the Jihadists who follow the Salafi Sunni creed burial sights are rejected as idolatrous and Sufi Muslims are not deemed as faithful, but rather as heretics and apostates. Shrines rejection goes as back as the13^th century and the famous scholar of Sunni Islam Ibn Taymiyya who, among others, demanded the destruction of the grave of prophet Muhammad himself in Medina. This conviction remained strong among certain circles throughout the centuries. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, dozens burial sights have been demolished since the house of Saud came to power. To be sure, as early as 1998 the authorities decided to destroy the grave that was said to belong to Muhammad’s mother.
The very fact that the insurgency in Sinai acquired islamist traits is a paradox since Bedouins traditionally prioritise tribal bonds and not religion. What allowed this paradox to take shape and become dominant was the combination of special and unique factors. Concretely, the alienation from the central Egyptian state, the chronic luck of meaningful economic development, the systematic discrimination against the Bedouin communities, the adjacency with Gaza under Hamas, and the treaties with Israel which barred Cairo from deploying considerable number of police and army troops in the peninsula gradually turned Sinai into a hotbed for radical Islam.
Sinai is a special frontier region which functions as a natural buffer between the Nile Valley and Egypt’s eastern neighbours.The area was officially incorporated into the main body of the Egyptian state in 1906 with the treaty of Taba. In 1967, in the aftermath of the Six Day War,it came under Israeli occupation. Moreover, until 1982 when Israel returned it to Egypt, Sinai hosted a small number of Israeli settlements. The return of the peninsula came with the commitment by the Egyptian side to have a limited and monitored military presence east of the Suez Canal. Sinai is a rather scarcely populated area and the only significant population centers are found across the northern coastline and the edge of the peninsula in the Red Sea. To better understand Sinai demographics, one has to bear in mind that in 2012 the population of the area was estimated to have 400 thousands inhabitants, while Egypt in total hosted more that 80 millions souls.[i] More than 70% of Sinai residents are of Bedouin origin who are divided between 20 different tribes. Sinai Bedouins’ roots are associated with the Arabian Peninsula and the countries of the Levant, with the exception of the Jabaliyya tribe. The members of the latter are believed to be the descendants of a Balkan garrison that was sent to the area by the Ottoman Sublime Porte, and although they converted to Islam, the distinct element of their identity remains their attachment to the St. Catherine Monastery.[ii]
For the fact that Sinai Bedouins have traditionally priotirised tribal affiliation to the detriment of Egyptian national identity, is not something that Egyptian authorities did not contribute to. On the contrary, this occurred largely due to the distrust with which Cairo has been traditionally treating Sinai Bedouins. It is worth noting that very few state or army officers come from the Bedouin community. In the same vein, when it was decided to proceed with investments in the tourist industry that converted the fishing villages of Sharm el-Sheikh and Dahab into luxurious resorts, locals not only were forced to abandon their homesteads, but they were also excluded from the newly created jobs. Against this backdrop, many young Bedouins felt they had no other option but to join smuggling rings and engage in illicit activities that were easier to undertake in the under-policed peninsula. As expected, this development could not but exacerbate the discrimination that the Bedouin community was already experiencing.
In the midst of the first decade of the 21^st century it had become clear that the perspectives for most of Sinai’s youths were rather bleak and limited. And it was in this tenebrous context that an Islamist group, “Tawhid wa-l-Jihad” entered the scene. The terrorists, between 2004 and 2006, stroke three times at the tourist resorts in the south of the peninsula.The fact that only the first attack, whose target was a hotel frequented by Israelis, was directly linked with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while the other two were the radicals’ response to the arrests that had followed the first attack, indicates that the perpetrators were motivated by local grievances, rather than by a sincere call to play their part in a pan-Islamic mission. And indeed, in the wake of October 2004 attack, the Egyptian authorities launched a campaign of mass arrests and detentions where, according to relevant reports, the rights of those in custody were systematically abused.
The misconduct of the Egyptian security forces left a deep scar in the collective memory of the Bedouin community. Consequently, if a relevant calm appeared in the restive region after 2006, this was hardly the outcome of the efficiency of the Egyptian administration. On the contrary, the calm was rather the result of external developments. The withdrawal of Israelis from Gaza in 2005, the electoral victory of Hamas in 2006, and Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in 2007 resulted in the reorientation of Gaza’s economy from Israel to Egypt. Given that the Rafah crossing remained hermetically sealed, Sinai Bedouins and Gazans cooperated and built a web of underground tunnels through which a vast array of products that included weapons and ammunition were imported into the blocked enclave. Tunnels, whose managing proved rather profitable, were run by Bedouins and therefore a part of the excluded, discriminated community seemed to have found a solid, albeit temporary and uncertain, answer to their dire economic situation.
Due to the very nature of this irregular but profitable activity, i.e. the support of a brotherly population suffering by an Israeli siege, not only the Bedouins became more exposed to radical tendencies, but also acquired greater access to guns and explosives. Hence, when external pressures forced Mubarak to adopt a harder approach vis-à-vis Rafah tunnels, the gap that separated Sinai and the Nile Valley simply came to the fore. In other words, sporadic clashes between militants and security forces, or small local revolts ceased to be an unthinkable option. In this regard, while protesters in Cairo in 2011 had to wait two weeks to hear Mubarak’s resignation, across North Sinai the army and the police had capitulated to the angry crowds from the first moment.[iii]
Between 2011 and 2013 the presence of central authority in Sinai was quite limited. In this respect, the irregular trade with Gaza reached its apogee and the peninsula saw a surge in the influx of cheap and sophisticated weapons whose origins could be traced to the pillaged arms depots of Qadhafi’s military bases. When in 2013 General Sisi overthrew President Morsi he faced strong challenges. Nevertheless, he managed to solidify his grip on power be embarking in a struggle which identified as enemies not only the Muslim Brotherhood, but also Hamas and Sinai Bedouins. In this context, and after securing the necessary green light from Tel Aviv, the Egyptian army launched an unprecedented campaign in Sinai which terminated the operation of the vast majority of Rafah tunnels. The Bedouin community reacted to the clampdown as if it faced an occupation army and the Egyptian soldiers followed suit. Adding salt to injury, the hatred reached new levels as videos purporting the abuses of the army against local civilians leaked and went viral across the web and social media. Taking into account the existence of considerable amounts of arms, and that during the previous years Sinai youths were exposed to radical ideas, it came almost naturally that the reaction of Bedouins was mainly expressed via Islamic fundamentalism and the the local “Ansar bait al-maqdis” became the official branch of the Islamic State in the area. Since 2013, and despite the repeated efforts of the Egyptian army, which regularly organises press-conferences to present its alleged achievements, the clashes go on, violence has spread to many of the rest of country’s regions, and finally there is still nothing and nobody that can guarantee the return of security and safety to the peninsula that separates Africa from Asia. 
Rumour has it that in 1982 Mubarak had rejected proposals for the development of Sinai stressing: “Do you want me to develop the Sinai for billions so Israel destroys it?”[iv] It is true that long-term master plans are expensive, contain high degree of risk, and it is quite likely that the very necessity of their inception would be questioned in retrospect. Yet, only such plans are really worth the effort. President Sisi has already promised a strong response for Egypt’s martyrs (sic) which probably means another round of arbitrary raids, shelling, arrests and detentions. And maybe it is true that for the physical perpetrators of al-Rawda massacrethere is practicably zero chance for honest repent and correction. But the thing is that the issue in Sinai hardly starts or ends with them. Consequently, their potential extermination would be nothing more than a blow to a Hydra’s head. In other words, it will not take long for the monster to regain and multiply its might and thus be able to hit again thereby causing international abhorrence and ecumenical condemnation for yet another time