Israel Has Dramatically Expanded Its Intelligence Collection Activities in the Sinai Peninsula - Matthew Aid
▻http://www.matthewaid.com/post/98383180736
Al-Monitor (Beirut, Lebanon)
September 23, 2014
RAFAH, Egypt — Israeli intelligence services have expanded their activities in the Sinai Peninsula since the Hosni Mubarak regime fell in 2011, and along with it, the Sinai state security apparatus affiliated with the Egyptian Ministry of Interior. This security apparatus was the only representative of Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai for three decades. State security developed a sour reputation among locals, who knew it only for its notorious practices in the peninsula in its attempts to reduce the influence of religious groups and weapons smugglers.
Israeli interventions in the area came with Israel’s growing concern about the movement of militant religious groups in the Egyptian peninsula, especially in the border areas adjacent to Israel.
Israeli intelligence services often target young smugglers, attempting to pressure them into working as operatives for Israel in the peninsula. A member of the Sawarika tribe, one of the largest tribes in Sinai, spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity about Israel’s attempts to recruit him as an operative.
“ In February 2011, during my prison sentence in Israel’s Ohlikdar prison, we were surprised by the state of alertness of Israel’s Mossad and Shabak [Israel’s internal security force, also known as Shin Bet]. We Egyptian prisoners were subject to intense investigation for two months, solitary confinement, punishment and psychological pressure.”
The tribal member, who spent four years in Ohlikdar prison on charges of infiltration and smuggling cigarettes into Israel, said, “I was being investigated by four Mossad officers in a single session. And I was harassed if I didn’t answer all the questions. They were intensely asking me about the smallest details concerning our lives in the border region and the activities of the radicals and those linked to religious, anti-Israel organizations as well as weapons smugglers for Hamas. After the end of the session, they threatened that they would send a videotape to Egyptian security services once I returned to Sinai accusing me of communicating with the Mossad if I didn’t give them new information during my permitted telephone call to my family.”
The tribal member said Israeli intelligence services were on alert immediately after the fall of Egyptian state security in Sinai with the outbreak of the Egyptian revolution in January 2011. That’s according to information he detected during the Mossad investigations. The Israelis were concerned that there was no more security deterrent for the people of Sinai.
Israeli intelligence work in Sinai intensified after the Eilat attack on Aug. 18, 2011, which was carried out by a faction belonging to the terrorist organization Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis. The terrorists managed to cross the 210-kilometer (130-mile) Sinai-Israel border to carry out the operation. ❞