Quick victory unlikely in Egypt assault on Daesh

CAIRO: Egypt’s military is conducting a sweeping assault to crush a resilient Daesh branch in Sinai, but the terrorist group is unlikely to be vanquished quickly, analysts say.
The operation was launched on Feb. 9 after President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who is expected to sweep to a second term in polls next week, gave the armed forces and police a three-month deadline in November to wipe out the terrorists.
The deadline has since been extended, and the armed forces launched their most comprehensive campaign yet to end the five-year-old insurgency.
The military gives regular updates on the operation, saying it has killed more than 100 terrorists so far while losing at least 20 troops.
“Egypt is doing a really good job controlling the narrative,” said Zack Gold, an analyst with the US-based CNA research group.
“Even ISIS (Daesh) has been challenged to put out statements. This suggests Egypt is in control,” he said.
“But (it) makes it hard to assess what’s really going on and whether long term impact will be different.”
Egypt had already launched several operations against terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula, who have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.
The Egyptian Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis group pledged allegiance to Daesh in 2014, gaining expertise and logistical support from the international group, which controlled a self-declared “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria.
The Sinai terrorists soon ramped up their attacks on civilians, planting a bomb on a Russian airliner carrying holidaymakers from a south Sinai resort in 2015, killing all 224 people on board.
Starting in late 2016, they also began targeting Christians, killing more than a hundred in church bombings and shootings across the country.
El-Sisi’s ultimatum came after suspected Daesh gunmen massacred more than 300 worshippers in a Sinai mosque associated with Sufis, seen by the terror group as heretics.
“There appears to be greater emphasis on actively targeting individual militants alongside degrading their logistical supply,” wrote EgyGreenfly, an anonymous blogger for Egypt Defense Review.
“Whereas previous Egyptian offensives focused on a particular area independent of the others at any one time, ‘Sinai 18’ appears to have finally coordinated efforts across the country.”
The military has said about 60,000 soldiers are taking part in the campaign, launched after a period of intelligence gathering in the peninsula, which borders Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
Omar Ashour, an associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said the latest operation was different from previous assaults in several ways.
He cited “intensive media propaganda/coverage, the size of the forces mobilized... the sustained cooperation with ‘militias’ or armed tribal formations fighting alongside regular army, and the increased tactical and operational coordination with Israel.”
The operation is likely to weaken Daesh in Sinai, which consists of no more than around 1,000 hardcore combatants who increasingly rely on hit-and-run attacks, roadside bombings and sniping attacks, analysts say.
But it will not bring about a decisive victory and end attacks.
“The military appears to be relying on a combination of airstrikes and ground operations to degrade the capabilities of terrorist groups in northern and central Sinai,” said Stephanie Karra, research associate for North Africa with The Risk Advisory Group.
“That said, the latest campaign does not appear to differ significantly from operations in the area in the past few years. And the military seems to be using the same conventional tactics that it has used in the past,” she added.
In response, Daesh has vowed to attack election-related installations and to redouble its efforts to target tourists across Egypt.
Security will be boosted for the poll, set for March 26-28.
Daesh in Sinai “continues operations against security forces in the Sinai but it has certainly been disrupted,” said Jantzen Garnett, Middle East analyst with the Navanti Group analytics firm.
“This may frustrate any plans the terrorist group had to disrupt the upcoming presidential elections.”
However, Garnett added, “if the Islamic State’s mainland cells, which have not conducted attacks in several months, operate independently, the Sinai campaign will have little effect on its capabilities.”