1. On the night between Thursday and Friday, May 23, the leader of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization, was killed. This person, Shadi al-Menei, was wanted for a long time by practically all the intelligence services in the region, including those of Israel and Egypt. According to initial reports, a vehicle with armed men drew close to Menei and two of his militants. An accurate and lethal drive-by shooting killed this man, who was said to be responsible for most of the attacks against Egyptian soldiers in Sinai as well as the firing of Grad rockets from Sinai at Israel’s southern city of Eilat.
Speculations about who killed Menei will surely abound over the coming days. The first speculation is predictable, namely a struggle between rival Bedouin tribes in Sinai that are settling scores. On the other hand, there is always someone footing the bill behind every such “settling of scores.” A well-known technique used by intelligence services is to hire local “subcontractors” that are willing to carry out missions, including assassinations, for large sums of money and/or additional benefits. Either way, Menei is no longer with us, prompting no one in Cairo, Jerusalem, Amman or Riyadh to really mourn for him.
The security collaboration between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Egyptian military is at its zenith. Senior Israeli security officials relate that during the period of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s ousted president, as well as during the time of Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president, Egyptians never took the trouble to look into Israel’s claims. About a year ago, when Grad rockets were fired at Eilat, the general in charge of Israel’s Southern Territorial Command turned to his Egyptian counterparts with information indicating that the rockets had been fired from Sinai. Egyptians rejected this. “They were fired from Aqaba,” they alleged.
Currently, the Egyptians have a dedicated battalion that is deployed in the area from which rockets could be fired at Eilat. An army officer with a colonel rank has been tasked with this special mission, namely to avert fire at Israel’s southern resort city.
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