Egyptian authorities are hailing as a success their biggest military operation in Sinai in decades.For supporters of the military-backed government, the projected months-long crackdown is a direct counter-offensive to the polices of ousted President Mohamad Morsi.Former intelligence officer and security analyst Sameh Seif al-Yazal."It's very much unstable thanks to Mr. Morsi, the previous president, who released thousands of Islamic fanatics from Egyptian jail by presidential declaration.All of them went to Sinai."The situation in the strategic region,extending from the Suez Canal to the borders of Israel and Gaza, has been dire for years: underdeveloped, open to criminal gangs and, more recently, weapons from Libya.And for all the blaming of the last president, Sinai security was also the responsibility of Morsi's defense minister, General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi, the de facto national leader.With the nation's “war on terror” the narrative has changed, and Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and Sinai's jihadi militants have become one.“The army, in its attempt to assert itself as the protector of the nation, as caring,you know, about the core interests that Morsi had abandoned, needs to do a better job in the Sinai,” said Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.State television replays countless images of the army closing illegal tunnels to Gaza, clearing areas near the border and attacking Jihadist positions.
