What’s next for Egypt’s IS affiliate after killing of leader?
After the Egyptian military announced Aug. 4 that the head of the Sinai branch of the Islamic State was killed in a series of airstrikes, observers are split over what comes next for the group.
Abu Du’a al-Ansari — the reported head of the Islamic State’s (IS) affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula — has been killed in an airstrike, an Egypt official said. Brig. Gen. Muhammad Samir, the official spokesman of Egypt's armed forces, described Ansari on Aug. 4 as “the leader of the [Ansar] Bayt al-Maqdis organization.”
A number of his deputies were also killed in the strike, Samir said. The Egyptian army stressed that numerous scenarios were being contemplated concerning the future of the organization, also known as Wilayat Sinai, in the wake of its leader’s killing and amid speculation as to who might replace him as the group’s next head.
Najeh Ibrahim, a former leader of Gamaa Islamiya and a researcher specializing in Islamist movements, told Al-Monitor, “Any discussion of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis’ future following the death of its leader should follow discussion of the various stages of the group’s founding and development. The organization is rooted in desert, borderland environments. It began in 2003, founded by a dentist known as Khalid bin Masa’id, with the help of Usama al-Mahlawi and Nasr Khamis al-Mallah. The military [leaders were] Salim al-Shanub and Hani Abu Shitah. They are the leaders who headed the organization in its initial stages, when it was known as the 'Tawhid Wal-Jihad' organization. It adopted the ideology of al-Qaeda, but was not [organizationally] affiliated with it. The group’s goal was to target Israelis and Egyptian policemen in Sinai. The group carried out several bombings of Sharm el-Sheikh, but most of the leaders were executed, with the exceptions of Hani Abu Shitah and Hamdin Abu Faysal, who were imprisoned with me at the time. In prison the two of them attended my lectures [outlining] a reassessment of jihadi ideology and, in fact, adhered to that ideological reassessment [themselves].”
Ibrahim said that in 2005, security forces succeeded in taking control of the group and killing most of its leaders. “They assaulted Jabal al-Hallal, which was the group’s redoubt, but the state was unable to generate any development [of education, infrastructure, etc.] in Sinai.”
