Author: issandr

Another look at the Taba bombers

It’s amazing how quickly the Taba bombings have faded from memory and gone from an event that was meant to shake up Egypt to an almost non-event. Still, the latest update is that the Egyptian ministry of interior has issued a statement saying that Al Qaeda had no links with the bombers who were arrested about a week ago.

That seems probable. There hasn’t been extensive coverage of this in English to my knowledge, but the profile of the bombers really does not make them out to be mastermind terrorists of Muhammad Atta caliber. I did a story for The Times reporting the basic facts, but it got cut down a fair amount. I’m reproducing the relevant excerpts below:

The [interior ministry] statement identified Ayad Said Saleh, a Palestinian living in the northern Sinai town of Al Arish, as the mastermind behind the operation. Saleh and one of his accomplices, Suleiman Ahmed Saleh Flayfil, were killed as they tried to escape the bombing scene but were caught by the explosion, suggesting that the bomb timers had malfunctioned and that the attacks were not intended to be suicide bombings.

“This confirmed that the incident was not a suicide bombing operation as the Palestinian and Egyptian were killed as they escape from their vehicles after they had failed to set the timers properly,” the statement said.

The two men were identified through DNA samples taken from body parts found on the scene of the bombing, it added.

Two other men who participated in the operation – Flayfil’s brother Muhammad and Hamid Jumaan Jumaa Jumaan – are still at large.

Investigations have also led to the arrest of five men – most of them Sinai Bedouins from Al Arish – who, while not directly involved in the bombings, participated in their preparation.

The ministry of interior said that several of the men who were arrested owned or worked in small workshops were the put the bombs together with unexploded ammunition from wars fought between Egypt and Israel in Sinai. These were rigged to timers recuperated from washing machines and placed in vehicles that were stolen for the operation by a one of the men, who was a known stolen car dealer.

Another one of the men arrested, a Bedouin from the area where the bombings occurred who owned a holiday camp, provided information to the bombers on the resorts that were targeted.

Saleh, the alleged mastermind, worked as a driver, had a long criminal record, and was most recently involved in the rape of a young woman in his car. The statement said he had “recently become a religious extremist.”

“[The attacks] were a response to the breakdown in the situation in the Occupied Territories and was targeted at Israelis staying in the hotel and the two holiday camps,” the statement said.

The statement however did not mention whether the nine men were part of any organisation. Three groups have claimed responsibility for the bombings, including Al Jamaa Islamiya Al Alamiya (the International Islamic Group), Kataib Al Tawhid Al Islamiya (the Islamic Brigades of Belief in the Unity of God), and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades. The last of these groups, named after a leading Islamist activist, was previously unknown but has repeatedly claimed responsibility for the attacks in the Arabic-language press and may be affiliated with Al Qaeda.

Overall, the bombers — if this is them, which some people doubt considering the extent of the damage caused by the bombings in heavily policed area — don’t really seem like Al Qaeda types. Petty criminals turned radical, perhaps. And the fact that they used old unexploded ordnance and washing machine timers doesn’t inspire much confidence, either.

Incidentally, a friend of mine who works at a local human rights organization has told me that there were massive arrests in Sinai during the investigation — and a lot of torture and brutality against innocent civilians. His research will probably make it out as a report soon, but it’s a reminder that these attacks only tend to worsen the already rather dire impunity with which police and security services operate in Egypt.

“We want to elect the American president”

Syrian journalist Yassin Al-Haj Saleh says out loud what many Middle Easterners think: they would a say at who is going to be the next president of the US, since he is going to have such a hold over their lives.

We ought to take seriously the findings of a recent global opinion poll in 23 countries and consider joining the citizens of the world in electing the next American president. Making this proposition a reality should be very simple since it rests on a fundamental and democratic tenet: decisions taken by the resident of the White House affect the destiny of countries, peoples and individuals all over the world. In other words, the latter is the president of the world and it is only right for those who are at the receiving end of any authority’s decisions to express their opinion and participate in its election.

[…]

The decisions of Mr. Bush or Kerry will affect the future of my country as well as my own destiny as a member of the Syrian and Arab democratic opposition, and this will manifest itself most evidently in the next few months. I therefore see American policies as coming from the corner of power and hegemony rather than those of solidarity with the weak and in defense of the persecuted. I do not need to witness the daily killings of Palestinians to dismiss any illusions I might have concerning the American project in our region, for those who want to see justice in Iraq and Syria cannot at the same time lend support to a professional killer’s work in Palestine. That is why I see American policy in the “Middle East” (this terminology itself does not give due recognition to the peoples of this region) as being the other face of the Syrian ruling elite that does not recognize the right of the Syrian people to make up their own mind and decide on their own future. American policies in the area therefore are a mixture of dictatorship and cultural condescension, as was manifested in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal a few months ago.

It seems to me that to democratize the Middle East we need to liberate ourselves from not one but three authorities: autocratic power structures throughout the region; the authorities above the law, i.e. Israel; and the most overreaching authority of all, the United States of America. None of these authorities, as far as the “Middle East” is concerned, is genuinely democratic.

U.S. policies in the region always had a far greater impact on our destiny than the Americans ever dared to admit, and this impact is only second to that of the local ruling dictatorships that could always count on the support of the U.S. as long as they carried out their designs and fulfilled their every request. Today the latter wants to control us under the pretext of liberating us, and the former want to preserve their power under the pretext of standing steadfast in the face of external threats.

Intellectuals vs. fundamentalist sheikhs

A group of over 3000 Arab and Muslim intellectuals wants to take to court sheikhs who they say encourage violence and terrorism:

Shaker al-Nabulsi, a U.S.-based Jordanian university professor, said about 3,000 Arab and Muslim intellectuals have signed the petition thus far calling for international trials. Iraqis, Jordanians, Libyans, Syrians, Tunisians and Persian Gulf intellectuals were among those who signed, al-Nabulsi said.

“The Arab regimes cannot put an end to these fatwas of terrorism; the international community can,” al-Nabulsi told The Associated Press in Cairo in a telephone interview from his Denver home.

Among those the intellectuals want to see tried are Qatar-based Egyptian Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, who has condoned attacks on American civilians in Iraq and sanctioned kidnapping in wartime. Two prominent Saudi clerics, Sheik Ali Bin Khudeir al-Khudeir and Sheik Safar al-Hawali, also are mentioned.

Good for them. It would be great if a movement of liberal intellectuals took to court prominent Islamists in their own country (although I’m not sure on what legal grounds they could do so), much as Islamists in Egypt have taken liberals to court for publishing books that are “insulting to Islam.” Youssef Al Qaradawi (even if he is not guilty of all the things often attributed to him) would be a good start.

Egypt tries to make itself useful in the Western Sahara

Al Jazeera reports that Egypt is now getting involved in the Western Sahara dispute, claiming it can bring the two parties back to the negotiating table.

“Egypt, which has a neutral position on the issue of Western Sahara, will engage in contacts with the two parties,” Mubarak’s spokesman Majid Abd al-Fattah told reporters on Sunday after the president met with visiting Moroccan Foreign Minister Muhammad Binaisa.

A laudable aim, no doubt, but I find it strange how over the past year at least Egypt has tried to position itself as a negotiator and mediator in virtually every conflict in the region. There’s always been Palestine, but now Egypt is taking the risk of becoming directly involved by essentially helping run a post-Israeli pullout Gaza Strip. Then there was Iraq, where Egypt is training police officers and hosting a regional conference later this month. And there’s Sudan, on which Egypt will be hosting a conference in a few days.

The Egyptian government would probably say that this is normal due to Egypt’s stature in the region and its long-standing role as mediator, which it particularly developed during the Oslo peace process. I don’t think this is the whole story, though. In fact, Egypt has been unable to assert itself as a mediator during most of the Bush administration, which preferred to bypass altogether regional leaders like Egypt. That has been the case with Israel/Palestine, where Egypt had to take a risky position in the Gaza Strip to re-enter the picture. In Sudan, a country Egypt considers its “near-abroad,” it was completely bypassed in the Machakos process and does not seem to have much relevance to the UN sanctions process right now. In Iraq, Egypt was ignored and then offered police training support, it seems to me, mostly to ingratiate itself to the Bush administration which has desperately been looking for Arab partners in the occupation of Iraq. Police training is so far all they could get, but it is better than nothing.

The bottom line is that Egypt’s influence is waning, and that its current activity probably shows two things: it is eager to maintain the appearance of influence for domestic and regional purposes, and it is eager to convince the US it is a useful ally and not, as many US policy-makers (and not only neo-cons) believe, an obstacle to the spread of democracy in the Arab world. I wrote an article (here [pdf] if you have a subscription) about this in the Middle East International a few months ago.

But going back to the Western Sahara conflict, while I don’t think that Egypt can make much progress where the UN, EU and US have failed (especially considering Moroccan and Algerian intransigence), it would be a good thing for more attention to be given to it. James Baker, who worked as the US’ special envoy, has given up, but hopefully the next president, whoever he is, will send someone new and try to get it going again. The conflict has lasted for too long for no particularly good reason except stubbornness and inertia. This Economist story has a good update, and concludes:

The simple fact is that Sahrawi dreams of independence have not faded. Both in Laayoune and in the far-off refugee camps, there is talk of taking up arms again for what everyone calls The Cause. In September, Morocco received a jolt when South Africa added its moral weight by recognising Sahrawi statehood. And at the UN, even America has declared impatience with supporting a mission whose initial mandate was to arrange a referendum, and which has so far cost $600m.

I must say I think the story is a bit too biased against Morocco. But then again, I’m told my Moroccan roots tend to show when discussing the Western Sahara. My feeling is that while Morocco should at least grant some form of limited sovereignty to the Saharaouis, it is important that the Sahraoui movement does not simply hand over what it reaps to Algeria, which has been pulling the strings all these years. I think that is a key concern for Morocco that has to be solved, and also believe that a semi-federal system that would integrate a large degree of autonomy for the Western Sahara would not only be good for that region, but for Morocco at large. It would help the slow and halting spread of democracy in the country by putting decision-making into the hands of locals rather than in Rabat. It’s a tendency I observed traveling around Morocco a few weeks ago, and I hope it continues.

Osama’s latest

I did a piece on the latest Bin Laden video yesterday (I’ll add the link later, right now it’s not working, but you can find it on th VOA website). The Al Jazeera transcript of the video is here . People I talked to in the Arab world mentioned that the fact Osama clearly took responsiblity for the attack would be a blow to the conspiracy thoeories about the Mossad or the CIA having staged 9/11.

They also stressed a few points about the video:
1. The tone: how Bin Laden avoids military symbols and violent threats and takes a calm, persuasive tone.
2. The suggestion that the battle between Al Qaeda and the West, rather than an inherent and eternal conflict, is a policy-driven one, and can be eneded, resolved, if certain conditions are met.
3. The specific references to US political developments (he references the Florida recount,the Patriot Act), and his critique of President Bush to the American people.

The LA Times has an interesting piece (via www.talkingpointsmemo.com) that ties these observations together and suggests that bin Laden is trying to transform himself from international terrorist to Muslim statesman.

This kind of analysis is worth pursuing; there are a lot of questions about what bin Laden was hoping to accomplish with this message… Personally, I find it fascinating and surreal that he is basically debating President Bush across the world this way, even incorporating some of Bush’s favorite terms (“freedom”) into his own statement.

Middle Easterners for Bush

Abu Aardvark notes that there is some support after all for Bush in the region:

Man, Lee Smith was really on to something with that whole “many Arabs like Bush” thing. Newsweek reports that “Randa Fahmy Hudome, who just this month signed a $1.4 million contract to represent the Libyan government, served as a behind-the-scenes ‘media consultant’ helping to prepare this week’s press release praising Bush’s record in promoting ‘human rights, democracy and self-determination’ in the Middle East.”

So, along with al Qaeda and Saudi diplomats, Bush is evidently favored by unrepentant dictator Moammar Qadaffi.

Notice a trend here?

Doesn’t this bother any of the dwindling number of ‘liberal hawks’ who support Bush because of his supposed commitment to transforming the Middle East?

Don’t forget that Bush is also supported by Iran’s supreme national security council, as we had noted here.

And take a look at this Brian Whitaker article on Bush support in the Middle East.

Spam

You may have noticed that the site is occasionally flooded with comment spam. I think I’ve fixed that now (thanks to this) so hopefully it won’t be a nuisance anymore.

Apologies if any of the spam was offensive.

Freedom House on Egyptian women

Abu Aardvark mentioned this study on women in Egypt [PDF] a few days ago. While he highlighted the bit about how the study finds no one reads, listens or watches US-sponsored Arabic media (no big surprises there) I found the next finding more telling:

Women’s political rights: a hollow equality. Women have equal rights to vote and participate in political debates, most Egyptians say. Exercising these rights does not matter, because they see political rights as meaningless in Egypt’s current political system. Many Egyptians see formal politics as an elite game and view debates among political leaders as irrelevant to their lives and concerns. Few Egyptians say that they have ever voted in elections. Reasons cited for not participating in formal politics include not seeing a direct impact on their lives, perceptions of electoral fraud and cheating, and bureaucratic inefficiencies making it difficult to obtain voter identification cards.

Frankly, this does not only to apply to women, but to roughly everywhere in Egypt. In my district in central Cairo, which have hundreds of thousands of highly educated Egyptians living in it, less than 5000 people voted in the 2000 parliamentary elections. The apathy will continue as long as politicians do not offer real practical alternatives.

The other notable finding was:

Concerns about shortcomings in Egypt’s schools. The general public in Egypt sees education as the most important right for women, but they worry that Egypt’s public schools are not up to the task. Several Egyptians issue harsh critiques of the current education system, saying that teachers are poorly trained and schools are ill equipped. Many complain about having to pay teachers for private lessons so their children can pass exams, a payment that several view as bribery for a basic entitlement.

Until about two years ago, money assigned to education under the USAID program in Egypt was shrinking fast and scheduled to be re-assigned elsewhere altogether. The biggest item on the budget was for the commodity import program, which essentially provides support to banks lending money to importers buying American goods. The Bush administration has somewhat slowed down the shift away from education, which was good, but this is by no means safe for the future. Interfering in another country’s education system is a controversial thing to do, of course, but USAID and other organization should be able to do their utmost to support serious educational reform. That would offer an opportunity for some real reform as well as fulfill a laudable US policy objective towards the Arab world. The responsibility for the state of education in Egypt of course lies with the government, but this is one area where we should not be afraid to offer our help, even if it is at the expense of American exports.