The Egyptian army announced it had killed 123 Islamic State fighters over the past two days, in what many described as the heaviest fighting in Egypt since the 1973 war. The concerted attacks by dozens of gunmen on a series of Egyptian army posts has sent shock waves through Egypt, as well as the neighboring Gaza Strip and Israel.
The attacks are a direct challenge to the authority of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has been unable to stop similar attacks on Egyptian security forces in Sinai. Middle East analysts say his popularity could take a hit.
“President Sisi promised stability when he was elected,” Maha Yahya, an expert on Egypt at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut told The Media Line. “However the path chosen to achieve stability is one that only generate further unrest and insecurity. My expectation is that the response to the attacks will be military and security oriented and in fact reports indicate that the army has now declared Sinai a war zone. Unfortunately, this means we are going to witness an escalation of violence in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood may pay even more dearly for this.”
Yahya said that this will happen even though it is the Islamic State, and not the Muslim Brotherhood, which is responsible for the attacks. In an apartment in Cairo, security forces killed nine members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including a jurist, who were reportedly planning a terrorist attack.
In a statement, the Muslim Brotherhood said the men had been murdered “in cold blood” and called for a rebellion against Sisi.
“Go out and rebel, protect your country, yourselves and your children, prosecute Egypt again and destroy its fortresses of repression,” the Muslim Brotherhood movement stated.
The developments in Egypt were being closely watched in both the Gaza Strip and in Israel. As the fighting began, both Egypt and Israel closed its borders with Gaza. Egypt had relaxed some of the restrictions on Palestinians traveling to Egypt, at the urging of Saudi Arabia. But reports in both the Egyptians and Israeli press said that Hamas may have aided the Islamic State gunmen with equipment like anti-aircraft guns. Some analysts speculated that Egypt could even attack Hamas in Gaza, although others said that seemed unlikely.
In terms of Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Israel is watching the situation closely and is concerned.
“Terrorism is knocking at our borders,” the prime minister said during a visit to Hadassah Hospital at Ein Karem, where he met with a female soldier injured when attacked by a Palestinian woman at a checkpoint earlier in the week. “ISIS is not just opposite the Golan Heights. At the moment it is also in Egypt, opposite Rafah, facing our borders, and we are joined with Egypt and with many other countries in the Middle East and the world in the struggle against the extremist Islamic terrorism that is guided by two elements – Iran and the Shiite extremists, and ISIS and the Sunni extremists — as well as other factions such as Hamas.”
Israeli officials have already said they will allow Egypt to send more troops to Sinai to combat Islamic State there. Analysts say that while most Egyptians do not support the organization, they are growing frustrated with Sisi.
“Egyptians, like many Arabs, do not approve of the Islamic State approach or methods. But they understand the message and in a context where they are losing faith in the ability of their government to provide what they need for dignified lives, IS may become increasingly more appealing.”
The attacks in Egypt came less than a week after a series of attacks in Tunisia, France and Kuwait.
The attacks in Kuwait, which has been mostly exempt from the violence of the past few years, came as a surprise. A gunman from Saudi Arabia, affiliated with Islamic State, entered a Shi’ite mosque and killed at least 26 people before he was shot and killed.
Thousands of Kuwaitis attended a mass funeral for the dead, and Kuwaiti officials said they would crack down on terrorism.
Kuwait has a 70 percent Sunni majority and a 30 percent Shi’ite minority. But unlike countries like Iraq where there have been intense sectarian divisions for years, relations in Kuwait have been cordial.
“Kuwait’s large Shi’ite minority is well-integrated and includes many business people,” Jane Kinnimont, Senior Research Fellow in the Middle East program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, told The Media Line. “Kuwaitis pride themselves on being a strong nation with social cohesion.”
However, she said, there are disagreements over foreign policy issues such as the ongoing civil war in Syria.