February 3, 2014 | Quote
Egypt Faces New Threat in al-Qaida-Linked Group Ansar Beyt al-Maqdis
An al-Qaida-inspired group has emerged as Egypt's biggest terrorist threat in a decade, after a week in which its members claimed responsibility for shooting down a military helicopter, assassinating a senior policeman, and exploding a huge bomb outside Cairo's police headquarters.
Ansar Beyt al-Maqdis (ABM), or Champions of Jerusalem, first emerged in 2011, amid a security vacuum caused by the fall of Hosni Mubarak. Based in the isolated northern Sinai desert, next to the Israeli border, ABM's operations expanded drastically after the Islamist ex-presidentMohamed Morsi was overthrown in July 2013.
But what began as a Sinai-based insurgency now seems to have spread to the Egyptian heartland, with ABM now capable of increasingly sophisticated attacks both in and outside the peninsula.
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It is nevertheless considered the most active and proficient of the several groups at large in Sinai. At least 295 attacks have been reported there since July, and ABM has claimed more far more of those than any other group, according to David Barnett, a researcher who monitors ABM activities.
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“It really caught my attention,” said Barnett. “It supports the view that there are foreign fighters in the Sinai, and it's a message from al-Qaida that your cause is being recognised by us and foreigners are likely coming to aid you.”
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The government speaks of ABM and the Brotherhood in the same breath, but analysts say the links are tenuous. According to Barnett, ABM may even seek to draw disenfranchised Brotherhood members away from the latter group, on the basis that the Brotherhood's main tactic of dissent – the protest march – seems only to end in Muslim Brothers getting arrested and killed.
“What ABM is saying is that your peaceful approach is fine if you want to keep getting killed,” said Barnett. “We're here to defend you, [whereas] the Brotherhood isn't here for you any more.”