February 3, 2014 | Quote
Sinai Jihadi Group Emerges at Forefront of Egypt Violence
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A once obscure jihadi group has emerged at the forefront of the violence now afflicting Egypt, alarming security experts with its prowess and ties to a notorious Syrian militant group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (ABM), or the Supporters of Jerusalem, is an al-Qaeda-linked organisation based in the mountainous deserts of the Sinai Peninsula. Over the past three years it has claimed responsibility for a string of Sinai oil pipeline bombings, rocket attacks on Suez Canal shipping and missile launches on nearby Israel.
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“The battle in the Sinai has been going on for a number of years, but it’s really spiking now,” says David Barnett, a researcher at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defence of Democracies focusing on the group. “It’s in its infancy. This is still in the entry stages, and its attacks on the mainland have just begun. People are playing catch-up now to figure out who is this group, how capable are they and what their connections are.”
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Experts put ABM’s current manpower at a few hundred, based in the harsh desert of the Sheikh Zuweid district of North Sinai, close to the Israeli border. However, some worry it could eventually become a robust, highly active Islamist militant group akin to those in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan. Its members include veterans of the Syria civil war, including Walid Badr, a former Egyptian military officer who apparently died in a suicide-bomb attempt to kill interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim last September. Mr Barnett said he believes the group is increasingly attracting veterans of the Syria conflict and could draw upon hundreds of Egyptian jihadis returning from the Levant with battle skills.
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Mr Barnett said the group was attempting to leverage the political crisis to its advantage. “This is their chance,” he said. “The overthrow of Morsi is one of the prime vindications of the jihadi view that the ammunition box is the way, and not the ballot box.”
“They are still moving crowds by using these democratic slogans that eradicate Allah,” ABM leader’s leader said in the January 23 audio recording, in a direct appeal to disillusioned Brotherhood supporters. “My brothers, our rights were stolen using violence and weapons . . . so we have to be aware that pacifism is not the solution.”