realclearworld Newsletters: Mideast Memo
Moscow hastily repatriated thousands of Russian tourists late last week, as evidence continued to mount that it was a bomb that brought down a Russian commercial airliner on Oct. 31 over the Sinai Peninsula, killing all of the 224 passengers on board.
The incident involving Metrojet flight 9268 has created panic in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh -- a popular tourist destination nestled between the desert and the Red Sea -- as thousands remain stranded in the southern Sinai beach community.
The likely culprits belong to an ISIS affiliate known as the Sinai Province, but the organization's genesis is in fact rooted in its resistance to the Israeli government, as indicated by the group's former name, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, or Supporters of Jerusalem. Once a haven for jihadists of every stripe, years of government repression and isolation have turned Sinai into an incubator of violence. The Observer's Emma Graham-Harrison has more:
"Cairo has long struggled to control the sparsely populated expanses of the Sinai Peninsula, where Islamists have found refuge with smugglers, criminals and others keen to escape too much official scrutiny. But until little over a decade ago, it was a place militants went to hide, train and plot, not somewhere they carried out attacks.
"A shift in ideology, the fallout from a government crackdown, and chaos in neighbouring states have transformed the area from dangerous haven to conflict zone. Factions have united into a group with unprecedented access to funds and weapons, and which has become the most ambitious Isis franchise outside Syria or Iraq."
Although the restive Bedouin community has resisted the Islamic State group's advances in Sinai, years of government persecution and discriminatory land policies have made the peninsula a ripe recruiting ground for ISIS and its ilk. "Talk to an adult male Bedou in North Sinai, and the chances are he will tell you he has been in prison, sometimes in solitary confinement in a cell too small to sit down in," wrote The Economist in 2011.
Moreover, while the unrest in Sinai holds obvious security and economic implications for Cairo, it has also developed into a bigger problem for Russia, which has increasingly focused its bombing campaign on ISIS-held targets in recent days. However, as Moscow makes good on its pledge to fight ISIS, so too will the jihadist group push to retaliate by targeting Russian civilian targets.
This should cause concern in every capital with a stake in Syria's war, warns Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution:
"[I]f Russia is being targeted internationally, it makes sense to assume Americans will soon be in the crosshairs, too. In fact, this suggests the more aggressive the United States is in Iraq and Syria against ISIS, the more likely the organization is to respond with international terrorism."
The Bedouin of Sinai: Free but Dangerous -- The Economist
Bedouins Willing to Fight ISIS in Sinai -- CNN [VIDEO]
A Plague on Egypt's Tourism -- The American Interest
Around the Region
The Kurdish talking point. Last week we reported on the challenges facing Kurdish statehood, including the uncertainty that surrounds the oil-rich region of Kirkuk. In an interview with Al-Monitor's Julian Pecquet, the governor of Kirkuk province, Kurdish leader Najmaldin Karim, laments the politicization of his people's plight:
"Karim said he's been following the presidential race closely but has grown tired of the bipartisan proclamations of love for the Kurds. ‘Yeah, you know most of them really, with all due respect, it's just a sound bite,' he said. ‘Some of these guys, particularly on the Republican side, are senators and they can do more than just talk about it on the campaign trail.
"‘For example, arming the Kurds directly, making sure that the YPG [People's Protection Units] in Syria will be provided with whatever is necessary to defeat ISIS. They have been proven very successful in their fight against them and these are US allies. I mean, really, in Syria who does the US have other than YPG to fight for them? And I think the other thing they can do is call for a cease-fire and resumption of negotiations between the government of Turkey and the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party].'"
Meh to America. Friday prayer service at Tehran University has long served as a ritual opportunity to heap scorn and opprobrium upon the United States, the Great Satan antagonist of the ruling clerical regime's narrative of resistance. Animosities mightn't be quite as acute as they once appeared, however. McClatchy's Roy Gutman reports from Tehran:
"Official hatred for the United States is engraved on the pulpit. ‘We will put America under our feet,' it states in Farsi, ‘We defeat the United States,' in English. And on Wednesday, the 36th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's unelected supreme leader, said the use of the slogan ‘Death to the U.S.' was grounded in the Iranian constitution.
"‘The slogan means death to the policies of the U.S. and arrogant powers, and this logic is accepted by every nation when explained in clear terms,' he told an audience of students. They responded with shouts of ‘Death to the U.S.,' Khamenei's official website said.
"But if this is a central fixture of Iran's anti-America dogma, it may have lost its appeal. There were empty spaces between the rows of worshipers at the Friday service a reporter visited, and only three women populated the women's section off to the side. The participants seemed anything but enthusiastic, and the ritual denunciations seemed almost mechanical."
Qatar driving bans. Finally, Chris Hearn of The Inquisitr explains why the Qatari monarchy is prohibiting nannies, bakers, and calligraphy technicians, among others, from driving on its busy roadways:
"In 2013, the tiny, mega-rich Middle East Gulf country of Qatar developed a list of people who would be banned from getting a driver's license in the country based on their occupation. The ban has now been expanded to exclude even more workers from being able to drive.
"In a quest to relieve the congestion on its roads, the government of Qatar decided the best way to deal with the situation is to ban thousands upon thousands of migrant workers in roughly 162 occupation categories from getting behind the wheel of a car, according to the Qatar Scoop.
[...]
"As it is, getting a driver's license in Qatar for first time drivers or those who received a license in a country not on the approved list, is a difficult process with lengthy wait times for driving schools. The Gulf Times reports that an average of 35 people per day takes the driver test, with only a few of hopeful drivers actually getting their Qatar drivers licenses. Waits for retests can be months."
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