Sinai Insurgency



One of serveral charmless charms afforded since Aegypt's former Forever Pharoah got the olde heave ho has been Writ of State.

An admittedly Women Worshipping Western idee fixee of Statecraft - it essentially means the State holds the monoply on violence.

After all - just can't have weaponized goobs running around queering the mix on internal and external chiz - partic on foreign treaties negotiated in good faith.

Cept in Aegypt - the mighty mighty Army (so far only mighty at craking heads and tormenting girls) has got a full blown insurgency on their hands in their (supposedly owned and maintained semi near abroad) Sinai Peninsula.

Lawlessness, smuggling and militancy have thrived on the peninsula since the 2011 fall of Mubarak’s regime.

Bedouin arms dealers who are sympathetic to the militants said in recent days that fighters have launched shoulder-fired anti­aircraft Stinger missiles (known to the U.S. intelligence community as MANPADs) at military aircraft, laid improvised bombs along roads traversed heavily by troops, and fired barrages of bullets and RPGs at security personnel stationed here.

Bedouin leaders say the militants are a minority in the desert peninsula; the latter group says the militants consist mostly of locals who operate in small cells, with little to no command structure. But Bedouin leaders fear that the territory’s population may soon get swept up in the military’s crackdown, escalating the conflict into a wider war.

The military says its crackdown is necessary to fight terror, but the Bedouin here say it only adds fuel to their rebellion, in a cycle that may soon spiral out of control.

Security officials say they have seized Syrian, Palestinian and even Russian fighters in the Sinai since Morsi’s ouster. They have accused the Muslim Brotherhood, which backs Morsi, and the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, of orchestrating the violence, and say that many of the Sinai’s fighters are well-trained jihadists.

Pic - "Low Intensity"