Sinai Continues to Simmer, Threatens to Boil Over
Tensions are running high in the Sinai between supporters of President Mohammed Morsi and Islamist forces disillusioned by his failure to implement sharia.
CAIRO — Within the span of a week in late June, the Rafah Central Security Barracks were twice targeted by unidentified gunmen; a rocket landed in the middle of the Sinai; a prominent tribal chief survived an assassination attempt by police forces; and two police sergeants were kidnapped. This string of events casts major doubts on the Egyptian army and the Ministry of Interior's soothing statements insisting that they have control over the restive mountainous peninsula, which has been the site of several significant blows to the country’s national security since the Jan. 2011 uprising.
Meanwhile, the security situation in the Sinai continues to deteriorate as Egypt nears June 30, a day of planned massive protests calling for the ouster of its first freely elected president, Mohammed Morsi, and new elections.
“I don’t think there will be much mobility in Sinai on June 30, but I am concerned that clashes between Morsi’s supporters and opposition might virally spread across the peninsula,” Mostafa Singer, a prominent Sinai political activist and writer, told Al-Monitor.
Such remarks by Singer, a north Sinai revolutionary figure who keeps an eye on events along Egypt’s borders with Gaza and Israel, contradict an avalanche of speculation that Islamist currents in Sinai will be as active as those elsewhere in the country, either in support of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood regime or operating independently based on their own interests.
