Does Egypt now face an Al Qaeda threat on the third anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising? So far the death toll is 9 from the four deadly blasts that rocked Cairo, sparked street demonstrations and injured 90.
Apart from the clinical facts about the explosions, what does this all mean? It means Egypt is — for now at least — facing a period of instability on several fronts. And the attacks themselves could signal a new challenge to the Egyptian government. The Daily Beast foreign correspondent Jamie Dettmer puts it into perspective:
An al-Qaeda-inspired militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (Champions of Jerusalem), claimed responsibility for the attack on the police building, heightening fears that a low-level insurgency mainly confined to the Sinai Peninsula is breaking out and is now capable of striking at high-profile targets elsewhere at will.
….In a statement posted to online militant forums, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis later claimed responsibility for all four bombings, saying, “We tell our dear nation that these attacks were only the first drops of rain, so wait for what is coming up.”
“This is the first time the group has ever done a multi-pronged attack outside North Sinai,” says David Barnett, a researcher on jihadist groups at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.“Since November ABM has been more focused on less frequent but more high profile attacks,” he added. “Since Morsi’s overthrow no other groups have shown the same capability and intent as Ansar Bayt al Maqdis.”
Interior minister Muhammad Ibrahim insisted on Friday that the security forces are ready to deal with any trouble during the Arab Spring anniversary, but the jihadist bombings in Cairo and clashes across the country with Morsi supporters raise questions about what the authorities can do to counter the multiple challenges facing them.
The bombings came just days after the country voted in a two-day referendum approving a new constitution for the country.
The timing is clearly not coincidental: it’s a classic send-em-a-message. Egypt has been deeply divided as it approached the anniversary of Mubarak’s fall. The constitution was approved was approved 98.1% to 38.6%. The New Yorker’s Peter Hessler, in a post titled “If Everyone Votes Yes, Is it a Democracy?” writes:
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the 97.7-per-cent approval rate is that there is no overt evidence of widespread fraud. But this is why voting is only a small part of what constitutes a democracy; since the revolution, Egypt has held seven fraud-free national votes, and yet the country still doesn’t have a single government official who was elected to his position democratically. (Everybody voted into national office has been subsequently removed by coup or court decision, and local governments have yet to hold elections.) Since Morsi’s ouster, his supporters have been engaged in a bitter struggle with the Army and the police, leaving more than a thousand civilians dead. The courts have ruled the Muslim Brotherhood to be an illegal organization, and the Brothers and many of their supporters have boycotted the referendum. Last month, after a bombing killed sixteen people in the city of Mansoura, the government declared the Brotherhood to be a terrorist group, even though there was no evidence of its involvement. (The Brotherhood publicly denounced the attack.)
In this climate, a number of international monitoring organizations declined to help monitor the vote on the constitution. Alessandro Parziale, the director of the Cairo field office for the Carter Center, told me that the referendum had been so rushed, and the Carter Center received its accreditations so late, that it was unable to make the necessary preparations for a responsible monitoring of the polls. Instead, it is focussing on writing a report about the new constitution and the national situation. “The broader picture is more important than these two days,” Parziale told me. “We don’t think the process has been inclusive. And we think that democracy is all about inclusiveness.”
The AP listed several reasons why the approval of the new constitution actually “muddles” Egypt’s political outlook.
And a muddle is what terrorist groups love. The Daily Beast’s Dettmer again:
The main jihadist groups — Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis al-Furqan Brigades and the Jamal Network — are intertwined and al-Qaeda-linked. Some analysts have identified Ramzi Mowafi, an Egyptian physician who was close to Osama bin Laden, as one of the veterans shaping the growing insurgency.
And the jihadist insurgency based out of the Sinai has been escalating, despite the biggest deployment of the Egyptian military in the peninsula for decades. In November, Egypt’s military said the rate of terrorist attacks had declined, leading to optimism among army officers that security sweeps and a bloody crackdown were having an effect.
But al-Qaeda’s links with Egypt’s jihadist groups have been growing. In August The Daily Beast reported that American intelligence had intercepted an Internet-based conference call between al-Qaeda’s leader, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri, and representatives of 20 jihadist groups, including some from the Sinai Peninsula. The attacks have also been growing in sophistication and strategic value.
How will this play out in a divided Egypt? It sounds like with additional division and polarization. Or perhaps backlash against those who use violence. Reuters:
The security crackdown has been extended to secular-minded liberals, including ones who played a key role in the 2011 uprising. Human rights groups have accused the Egyptian authorities of quashing dissent and using excessive force, calling state violence since Mursi’s ouster unprecedented.
Still, many Egyptians choose to look the other way and extend their full support to Sisi. “We are here to support Sisi,” said a man in Tahrir who only gave his first name, Mahmoud. “Sisi is going to save the country,” said his wife.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian government has been taking a series of steps to control news. It’s cracking down on journalists, The Christian Science Monitor reports:
As Egypt’s rulers have moved to silence dissent since last July’s coup, international news media have felt a chill, and none more so than Al Jazeera, the Qatari network credited with helping to spread the Arab Spring. Now the network is paying the price: of the eight journalists currently detained in Egypt, five are employees of Al Jazeera.
The network’s Arabic channel and its local affiliate were known for their favorable coverage to President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was ousted in the popularly supported coup in July. Since then, in contrast to most Egyptian media, Al Jazeera has led with critical coverage of the military’s violent suppression of the Brotherhood and non-Islamist political activists.
That crackdown has extended to journalists, with dozens assaulted or detained for short periods since the coup. But it has disproportionately focused on Al Jazeera, underscoring the government’s animus toward a network that won’t play its tune.
Protests. Terrorism. A government crackdown that could create massive backlash if it goes too far. The lingering question: what is too far?
Could Egypt be heading into an Arab winter?
UPDATE: The number of deaths in the demonstration is now up to 12.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.