Amid the intrigue

Dina Ezzat examines the links between the visit of the emir of Qatar to Egypt this week and President Mursi's planned visit to Iran later this month

Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa's brief but intriguing visit to Cairo began on Saturday afternoon, a little before Iftar.

Long kept at arm's length by the Mubarak regime, Khalifa arrived at the presidential palace at 6.30pm. For a little over two hours Mursi, Khalifa and their staff shared Iftar before the two heads of state began a closed meeting.

What has been publicly acknowledged of the bilateral talks is less than striking: Qatar promised a less than headline making $2 billion in economic support to Egypt. Plans were mooted to activate already existing trade and investment agreements, though no details were provided, and the Qataris promised greater employment opportunities in the emirate for Egyptians, though without providing a timetable of when these jobs will be available.

Far more significant than the so far nebulous details of actual policies is the shift in relations between Cairo and Doha, which for the last five years of Mubarak's rule had been mired in antagonism.

Some diplomatic sources go so far as to suggest an alliance is in the making.

It was the regional, rather than bilateral, implications of the meeting that will have lasting significance.

The joint statement issued by President Mursi's spokesman's office underlined that a wide range of bilateral and regional issues were discussed.

Egyptian diplomatic sources say that two key regional issues topped the agenda of the Mursi-Khalifa meeting: the fate of Syria, where Qatar and Saudi Arabia are actively supporting the predominantly Sunni opposition to the rule of Bashar Al-Assad, and the balance of power between the Arabs, especially the Gulf states which have large Shia populations, and Iran, which continues to support Al-Assad and exercises major influence in Iraq.

According to one Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, the meeting has resulted in a "shift" in Mursi's position vis-?-vis the Syrian opposition, to which he had been hitherto reluctant to lend even moral support.

During his first foreign visit following election, Mursi made a statement in Saudi Arabia stressing Egypt's commitment to "protecting" Syria's Sunni Muslims. He has also made it clear to dignitaries visiting Cairo that Egypt was completely opposed to any plans that could eventually lead to the division of Syria.

Following the Qatari emir's visit it is no longer clear that this remains Cairo's default position, says the diplomat. Mursi may well be open to considering other scenarios to end the bloodshed in Syria.

"It was always a basic assumption that to support, directly or indirectly, any plan that might divide Syria would be against the Egypt's national security interests, but that was before the removal of Tantawi and Anan," says another Egyptian diplomat.

Mursi's decree forcing the retirement of Egypt's two senior military officers came less than 24 hours after Khalifa's visit, inevitably leading to speculation that the two events were linked.

An informed source who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly denies the most detailed speculation yet to emerge -- that Mursi removed Tantawi and Annan because they were opposed to plans for the Egyptian army to train Qatari supported Syrian rebels to help them either overthrow Al-Assad or establish an independent Sunni state in Syria.

"This would be a huge exaggeration of the anti-Americanism of Tantawi and Anan," says Mohamed El-Sayed Idris, a senior researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. He adds that it would be a mistake for Mursi to drift into supporting a Sunni-versus-Shia dichotomy and agree to any scenario that would divide Syria into two, possibly three, states.

Egyptian and Cairo-based foreign diplomats agree that it is premature to even discuss the division of Syria, though it is a debate that is unlikely to remain on the backburner for long.

The main task now, say Egyptian diplomats, is to persuade Iran to encourage Al-Assad to consider an exit -- "before it really is too late for him" as one diplomat put it.

Last week Arab countries ignored an Iranian call to discuss Syria.

Syria topped the agenda of the emergency summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) that convened in Mecca yesterday. It will also be a key subject for debate later this month during the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit scheduled to convene in Tehran.

Last week in Cairo Mursi received Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's envoy who handed him an invitation from Tehran to head the Egyptian delegation due to hand over the NAM presidency from Egypt to Iran.

"Iran has been seeking to improve relations with Egypt for several years now, and grew even keener following the revolution," says an Egyptian diplomat.

He believes that Tehran may be willing to consider diplomatic proposals offering Al-Assad a safe exit -- as long as a pro-Iranian regime replaced him -- in return for upgrading relations between Tehran and Cairo.

Iran has already proposed that early presidential elections should be held to allow Al-Assad to hand over power. But early presidential elections in Syria are no longer an option for most Arab states, including Egypt. Last month the Arab foreign ministers meeting in Doha called on Al-Assad to step down.

According to sources within the presidential palace, Mursi's visit to Tehran has been penciled in but awaits confirmation.

This confirmation depends on the talks Mursi was scheduled to have with Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the OIC summit in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.

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Israel's Sinai spin

Tel Aviv is trying to paint the attack on Egyptian soldiers in Rafah as the work of Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza, hoping to revive strategic understandings it shared with Mubarak, writes Saleh Al-Naami in Gaza Palestinians walk to the Rafah border on the Egyptian side to cross over to Gaza. Egypt opened the Rafah border to allow the return of pilgrims from Saudi Arabia (left); Palestinians pray on the compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Ahmed Fayed, 39, was scheduled to make his dream trip to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for omra (the small Islamic pilgrimage) in the last 10 days of Ramadan, something he has longed to do for years. But Fayed's hopes were dashed when Egypt decided to close the border at Rafah after a massacre there killed 16 Egyptian soldiers. Hundreds of Gaza residents had booked pilgrimage trips. The Egyptian decision also compounded humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip.

The decision was taken at the height of summer when activity at this border crossing peaks. This year Palestinians living in Arab and Diaspora states were more confident in travelling to the Gaza Strip to visit their families, feeling that conditions at the border had improved after Mohamed Mursi won the presidential election in Egypt.

Khalil Al-Masri, 49, works in one of the Gulf states and has not visited his family in Gaza for 10 years out of fear that the Rafah border crossing would be closed and that he would be trapped in the Gaza Strip and unable to return to his job. Al-Masri finally made it to the Gaza Strip this year and was planning to leave Saturday. He is worried that the border will remain closed, which could mean that he would lose his job if his employer is not sympathetic to his circumstances.

An even more critical factor is the inability of the sick to leave for medical attention abroad. Samah, 26, who lives in Gaza City, intended to travel to Cairo via Rafah for surgery, but now she has to suffer until the border crossing is opened again.

Undersecretary at the Ministry of Interior and National Security in the Gaza government, Kamel Abu Madi, warned of a crisis because of the border closure that will affect all aspects and segments of Palestinian society. "The ministry has lists of tens of thousands of citizens who want to travel and leave the Gaza Strip for work, health and academic reasons," Abu Madi said. "There are some critical humanitarian cases that need to travel, including life threatening health conditions that need emergency medical attention."

He added that a large number of Palestinian families on travel registries came to Gaza to spend the summer holidays and now the bread earners of those families are threatened with losing their jobs and residency status in host countries if the border crossing remains closed. "The delayed departure of registered travellers could result in a crisis at the border crossing," Abu Madi warned. The Palestinian official urged Egypt's leadership to open the border because of the extreme harm it is causing the Palestinians who have long suffered from repeated border closures, adding that students need to return to their schools and universities abroad.

Gazans are particularly worried that the Rafah attack will hinder the implementation of understandings reached between Mursi and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip, scheduled to begin after the Eid Al-Fitr holiday at the end of August. This includes permitting a large number of travellers across the border on a daily basis, prolonging work hours at the border crossing from 9am until 9pm, and slashing the list of those banned from travelling for security reasons. The agreement also included not deporting Gazans from Cairo Airport and an understanding on resolving the electricity problem in the Gaza Strip.

Gazans fear that the Rafah attack will be a pretext to keep the border crossing closed, and even lead to a tighter siege on the Gaza Strip. Salah Al-Bardaweel, a leading Hamas member, denied that his group, Hamas's politburo or Haniyeh's government received "any accusations from Cairo about elements in Gaza" involved in the Rafah massacre. Al-Bardaweel said that, "Egypt did not send any information about involvement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in this crime, and did not make any specific demands of the Gaza government or Hamas in this context."

He said that Hamas told Egyptian officials that it is "wholeheartedly prepared for joint cooperation in investigating the crime and arresting the perpetrators, irrespective of who they are," and that his group took the initiative by participating with other factions in opening a house for condolences as an expression of sorrow and anger on the Rafah attack. Al-Bardaweel declared that occupation forces "are the ones who benefit from the crime and are involved in the Rafah incident".

There is much speculation in support of this theory. "The Zionist enemy wants to destabilise Egypt's security and embarrass the Egyptian leadership, which it views as hostile to its aggressive plan, and is seeking to rupture ties between Hamas and Egypt after a marked improvement in relations," Al-Bardaweel explained. The Hamas figure added that his group is willing to shut down the tunnels in return for Egypt permanently opening the Rafah border crossing to individuals and goods. Opening the border crossing would also be in solidarity with the resilience of Palestinian people and their resistance to occupation that seeks to Judaise holy sites and kills children, women and the sick. An open border crossing at Rafah is the civilised alternative to the tunnels, he added.

"We are confident that the Egyptian leadership will work on this alternative and hope that the closure does not last too long," he said, "especially since it's the holy month of Ramadan, Eid [the Islamic holiday following the month of fasting] will begin soon, and there is a lot of construction in Gaza to rebuild homes destroyed by the occupation, and to house those who were displaced and have no homes or shelter."

Meanwhile, Israel seemed as if it was anxiously waiting for the Rafah attack in order to serve strategic goals it had long desired. Tel Aviv tried to use the attack to drive a wedge between Egypt and the Gaza Strip after relations flourished since the Egyptian revolution and Mursi's election, claiming that parties in Gaza were involved in the Rafah attack. Yet Roni Daniel, the military reporter on the Israel's Channel 2 Television, and Alon Ben-David, the military expert on Channel 10, reported that Israeli security agencies had no evidence linking Gaza with the Rafah incident.

It is clear that Israeli decision-makers want to limit Mursi's margin of manoeuvrability, to embarrass him at home, and to force him to retract understandings he finalised with Haniyeh on relaxing the siege on Gaza, by claiming that Gaza is responding to Mursi's friendly overtures by targeting Egypt's national security. Tel Aviv is trying to stir Egyptian public opinion against the Palestinian resistance, especially Hamas, analysts say, and this has become a priority for Israel's leadership since it would enable Israel to pound the Gaza Strip.

All reports by Israeli army and intelligence agencies to politicians in Tel Aviv state that carrying out a large scale attack on the Gaza Strip after the 25 January Revolution has become a very difficult task, because of the influence of Egyptian public opinion on decision-makers in Cairo. Reports issued by the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University state that Egyptian public opinion could pressure the Egyptian leadership to review the Camp David Treaty if Israel carried out a large scale attack on Gaza. The studies also warn that the reaction of the Egyptian public could cause Egypt to completely withdraw from the Camp David agreement. Israel believes this agreement is a critical component of its national security.

Thus, framing the Palestinian resistance in the Rafah attack would influence Egyptian public opinion on the Palestinian issue and limit the ability of Egypt's new leadership to revise its foreign policy and reformulate it on an entirely different basis than the one in place under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, especially regarding the Palestinian cause.

In fact, this point was blatantly and openly made by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who said that Egypt should learn the lesson of what happened in Rafah, and learn to confront "Egypt's true enemies" -- in reference to Palestinian resistance groups in the Gaza Strip.

Israel is thus trying to use the Rafah attack to pressure Cairo to revive the strategic partnership of bygone days under the Mubarak regime.

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Command posts

As the military continues raiding shelters of Islamic fundamentalists in Sinai, an unexpected change at the top of the Armed Forces could be a turning point in the confrontation, Amirah Ibrahim reports

The aftershocks of last week's deadly Sinai attack in which 16 soldiers at an Egyptian border guards unit were killed are rattling the country. On Sunday, President Mohamed Mursi dismissed all high-ranking officers of the Armed Forces, including the powerful military leader Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who was defence minister and general commander for more than 15 years. Tantawi had also been de facto leader of the country from the time former president Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February last year to the election of Mursi as president last month.

Mursi promoted the military intelligence manager, Major General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi as new defence minister.

Mursi's revolutionary reshuffle also included the second man, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Sami Anan and the top commanders of the Air Force, Navy and Air Defence.

Following the attack against the border guards in Rafah at the Israeli-Egyptian border line, Mursi dismissed the Northern Sinai governor, head of the intelligence body and the commander of the Presidential Guards.

As counterattacks were being launched by Egyptian military forces against armed Islamic groups in Sinai, Mursi paid a visit to the battle zone on Friday accompanied by Tantawi and Anan. He addressed the Armed Forces in Rafah, affirming they would get their revenge.

El-Sisi was granted a double promotion to upgrade his rank from major general to first lieutenant general to allow him to top senior commanders.

El-Sisi who has no field experience in war, joined the army in 1977 making him the first defence minister who has not participated in any of Egypt's four wars with Israel.

On Tuesday, violent confrontations broke out between police and military forces on one hand and unidentified armed groups, mostly belonging to Islamic extremists, at Sheikh Zuwaid and Rafah districts in Northern Sinai. The army launched a military operation code named Eagle against terrorists in Sinai, using Apache helicopters and surveillance planes for the first time since Egypt and Israel signed their peace treaty in 1979. Dozens of soldiers and some 30 tanks were deployed to the area.

Following the attack which killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, Egypt closed the Rafah crossing as intelligence reports suggested the assailants had help from Gaza. On Friday, President Mursi responded to a Hamas plea to allow Palestinian pilgrims to cross; the borders were opened from one side for 48 hours.

Hamas officially accused Mursi of acting like former president Hosni Mubarak by helping the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. "We suffered from the unjust regime of Mubarak that participated in the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Why should we suffer now, in the era of Egypt's revolution and democracy?" stated Palestinian Interior Minister Fathi Hamad.

Hamas was in fact complaining about the Egyptian troops who, backed by the Air Force, sealed more than 100 cross-border tunnels used for smuggling goods.

When Mursi dismissed the military leaders, Hamas repeated its request that the Rafah border crossing point be permanently opened. Mursi responded with a two-way traffic opening of the borders for three days, allowing Palestinians in and out of Egypt. The border was open to patients, Palestinians pilgrims returning from the omra and humanitarian cases.

Operation Eagle has thus far killed 32 extremists. It shut down smuggling tunnels, but as well it brought a new reality on the scene, which is that the Egyptian military should have a new formula within the peace treaty to help control the Sinai Peninsula in order to ensure its full sovereignty.

Under the Camp David accords, the deployment of Egyptian military planes and helicopters in Sinai must be coordinated with Israel but the Egyptian military is finding it difficult to accept this proposition: It must protect its soldiers as well as those of Israel but while using a limited number of troops. As such, the army seems unhappy with Mursi's previous declaration of an intent to preserve signed political agreements.

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A midsummer night's maidan

Ati Metwaly samples the holy month's offerings

As Ramadan's draws to a close, art events ?ê" often musical ?ê" are still taking place almost every evening. All across Cairo, with the holy month falling at the peak of summer, late-evening concerts have been attracting remarkably large audiences. El-Fan Midan (Art Square), organised on the first Saturday of every month by the Coalition for Independent Culture at Cairo's Abdeen Square and across other governorates is one of the many platforms holding artistic events with one or two stages at each location. Though Abdeen Square hosts musical performances repeatedly throughout the year, due to its nature, El-Fan Midan is organised once a month.

This month's El-Fan Midan took place on Saturday 4 August and aligned its activities with the Ramadan schedule; events kicked off at nine pm and went on till 2 am (5 August), offering an assortment of music and other performances along with handmade art. Although the event was interrupted by a prolonged power cut within the first hour, most on-stage performances continued. But it is worth recalling that the case of El-Fan Midan is rather peculiar and worth looking at irrespectively of Ramadan.

El-Fan Midan's was launched in April 2011, in a number of governorates, and aiming to bring art to public space where ordinary Egyptians can see it. The initiative depends on support extended by non-governmental individual donations. For the first several editions, while Emad Abou Ghazi was in the ministerial chair, the Ministry of Culture also contributed a small amount to El-Fan Midan. As the months went by following Abou Ghazi's resignation at the end of 2011, the ministry started withdrawing its financial support and donations were shrinking.

Today the initiative is facing financial trouble. As much as we must praise all the voluntary work and artistic contributions, we must also be worried that El-Fan Midan will starts depending on developing young artists and amateur performers. Though 4 August included a number of valuable artistic propositions on the one hand, some numbers ?ê" especially El-Aragoz ?ê" showed a rather chaotic spontaneity without adding anything significant; a few musicians could have given more rehearsal time to their performance, too. Knowing the professional supervision to which Coalition for Independent Culture members are subject, it is important to revise those values to make sure the event serves its purpose, which is bringing valuable art to a broad audience.

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No doubt music makes for those events that audiences look forward to the most during Ramadan. The fifth International Samaa Festival for Spiritual Music and Chanting, held at the Salaheddin Citadel and Al-Ghouri Caravansary until 8 August, evoked the Ramadan spirit. The festival included international and local traditional performers among whom many held workshops introducing the attendees to their forms of expression. The festival is an opportunity to see the riches of religious and spiritual chanting from all across the world, attracting many social strata time and again.

It is worth remembering that this year's Hayy Festival, organised annually at El Geneina Theatre by the Cultural Resource (Al Mawred Al Thaqafy) hosted musicians from Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt. Operating since 2005, through its dynamic and always interesting programme, El Genaina Theatre gained much popularity and recognition from listeners with refined tastes. Hidden at the far end of Al-Azhar Park, the theatre's rather far away and seemingly hard to reach location is no obstacle in the way of many. The Palestinian singer Rim Banna's concert on Thursday 3 August bore plenty of evidence to that; it gathered an unprecedented number of attendees. Due to the large crowd many attendees experienced difficulties entering the event.

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The Cairo Opera House's Ramadan Evenings, held at the open air theatre, witnessed just as much interest from the audience. This Ramadan, the Opera offered numerous events across its venues in Cairo, Alexandria and Damanhour. As per its yearly tradition, it presented musicians from Egypt and guest performers brought over in coordination with their respective Embassies. According to the Opera's management, this year all international music events, from Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Yemen, Tunisia and a number of other countries proved very popular. Equally concerts by Egyptian musicians such as Fathy Salama, Aly El-Haggar, Eskenderella, Nesma Abdel Aziz and many others returned with captivating performances. On Friday 10 August (22 Ramadan) there wa an interesting juxtaposition of returning Tunisian musicians performing at the small hall of the Cairo Opera House to a small yet attentive audience, with Eskenderella band taking the open air theatre by storm and receiving, after each song, huge applause from the packed auditorium.

Many music events, especially those scheduled at the Opera House's venues were cancelled or rescheduled due to the three days of mourning (Monday 6 August through Wednesday 8 August) announced by the Opera in response to the killing of sixteen border guards in an attack on the Israeli-Egyptian border in the Sinai Peninsula. The Palestinian Embassy in Egypt cancelled, without rescheduling, its Ramadan Nights which were planned for 11 August at the Cairo Opera House, 12 August at the Damanhour Opera House, and 13 August and Alexandria Opera House. In the last few days of Ramadan, such summer performances will come to an end and soon the new musical season will overtake these and other venues, but the Cairo Opera House is preparing for one more open air festival before the start of the season: the Citadel Festival, which will kick off on 29 August and continue until 5 September, offering a variety of genres performed by Egyptian musicians.

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Women power in Tunisia?

Tunisian women are becoming increasingly concerned at the possible consequences of Islamist rule, writes Lasaad Ben Ahmed in Tunis Protesters wave flags and shout slogans during a demonstration in Tunis. Thousands of Tunisians rallied on Monday to protest against what they see as a push by the Islamist-led government for constitutional changes that would degrade women's status in one of the Arab world's most liberal nations

Women's Day, held on 13 August, was marked by exceptional events in Tunisia this year, with hundreds of Tunisian women gathering for a night-time demonstration at 14 January Square on Al-Habib Bourguiba Street in the capital Tunis. The demonstration was a clear signal of defiance to the Islamist groups that Tunisian women feel are threatening their rights, despite reassurances that the ruling Islamist Al-Nahda Party will not seek to change the country's liberal personal status laws.

The fears had been stoked after the first draft of the country's proposed new constitution had referred to women's "complementarity" to men, which Tunisian women reject, saying that they want equality and not complementarity. The use of the word in the draft constitution triggered a series of protests, especially among the country's opposition and the nascent Tunisia Call Party led by former prime minister Al-Beji Caid Al-Sebsi.

In a statement, Al-Sebsi said that the personal status laws were a "red line" that could not be crossed, as any infringement of women's rights would undermine modern Tunisian society.

Some observers feel that the reactions to the word have been exaggerated, since it was used in a draft version of the new constitution that will be debated after the Tunisian parliament returns from recess in early September.

At the same time, article 22 of the constitution states that Tunisian citizens are equal in terms of rights, duties and freedoms. The protests against the use of the word "complementarity", some observers argue, have been exaggerated "by an opposition that has failed to make a contribution or present an alternative [to the ruling Al-Nahda Party] and has been left out of the transitional process at a time when the country needs to consolidate efforts."

Although the first draft of the new constitution is now finished, albeit after some delays, the rapporteur of the country's constituent assembly, Al-Habib Khedher, has said that it will be impossible to produce a final draft by the 23 October deadline, given the bickering among MPs on many crucial issues, such as the character of Tunisia's new political system and whether it will be parliamentary, presidential or a mix of the two.

Some political groups have used such delays as an excuse to call for a vote of no confidence in the Al-Nahda Party, saying that "it has not and will not meet the one-year deadline for writing a new constitution." Meanwhile, no real progress has been made in dealing with Tunisia's structural problems of unemployment and imbalanced regional development, stirring up a series of protests.

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets across the country recently in such protests, notably in the town of Sidi Bouzeid, the cradle of last year's Tunisian revolution, triggering fierce battles between the protesters and the security forces, which used teargas and rubber bullets.

Several people have been arrested, and the opposition has denounced what it calls an "excessive use of force in dealing with the legitimate demands of the people". Once again, it has also called for the end to the restricted "troika" coalition government and the forming of a broader coalition government instead.

However, Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Al-Jibali has not responded to such criticisms, and the leader of the Al-Nahda Party, Rached Al-Ghanouchi, commented that "the enemies of Islam are willing to destroy the country in order to ensure that Al-Nahda does not succeed. But their attempts will fail as long as the nation adheres to its religion and righteous path."

Al-Ghanouchi said that the Al-Nahda victory in last year's elections would "pave the way for the success of the Islamist project after the Revolution," perhaps a reference to Al-Nahda's desire to do away with the modernising reforms passed during the rule of former Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba, which are championed by the opposition as well as by Al-Sebsi, who has defended the reforms as fundamental pillars of modern Tunisian society.

The political dimensions of such conflicts have been illustrated in the fractures that have taken place in the ruling troika government and the unrest that took place in the constituent assembly during the last week before parliament's recess.

On this occasion, several MPs joined the Tunisia Call Party, making the Party a member of the assembly even though its candidates had not stood in the elections. This in itself will mean that the previous kind of heated politics will return in full force when the assembly reconvenes.

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Mortifyingly Megaryef

Libya's legislature's vote for the Brother sheds an entire new light on the course of the country, contends Gamal Nkrumah

Tripoli proceeds from the politics of petroleum to ideological perceptions. The country appears trapped in a vicious cycle of terror that ironically hit Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica, the cradle of the uprising that sparked the revolution that toppled the regime of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The spike in violence in the country did not prevent Libya's newly empowered legislative body, the General National Congress (GNC) from electing Mohamed Al-Megaryef, founding member of the National Salvation Front, as its president.

These combined efforts should have two clear goals in mind. First, Libyans want a state that is functional and democratic and they appear to prefer a Western-style multi-pluralism to the autocratic rule of their former strongman Gaddafi.

Some voters in Libya increasingly deem Megaryef woebegone, even though he has just wrestled the mantle of leadership. There is a widespread feeling that Megaryef is a man of the people and that he will deliver.

Megaryef's election has done little to quell outrage among certain sections of the Libyan people, even though he seems to be a favourite with Libya's post-Gaddafi political establishment.

This is an odd problem. Even by the standards of the post-Gaddafi Libyan political dynamics, the gap between fact and fiction yawned unusually wide this August. Take the curious blast that shook Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, on Wednesday 1 August. The whiff of high level treachery funnelled rumours of the growing power of the Green Resistance, an underground army of old guard Gaddafi loyalists.

That morning a bomb struck the headquarters of military intelligence in Benghazi. Eyewitnesses claimed that there were no dead or injured. The Green Army claimed responsibility for the attack, for this surely was not the work of a suicide bomber. Some Benghazi residents insist that they saw a man stepping out of a silver car and hurl the bomb.

So what is the secret of the slick silver car? And again, eyewitnesses allude to a remote controlled bomb, implying that it was not the work of a jihadist fanatic. The blast was certainly either that of an insider, one of the members of the disgruntled militant Islamist groups, pro-Gaddafi snipers or tribal paramilitary gangs.

Much of Libya has become a tattered patchwork of combat zones and some Libyan towns and cities have been gutted by months of sporadic yet systematic shelling by the Green Resistance army as well as by tribal militiamen.

And as if the bombing of the Benghazi secret service headquarters was not enough, earlier in June this year, another remote controlled bomb had gone off in a vehicle parked near the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

The hand of tribal turncoats from within the new post-Gaddafi political establishment is clear. There were nastier tales of preparations for revenge by diehard Gaddafi loyalists.

Directed with seeming purpose, the targeting of Western diplomatic missions in Benghazi appears to be somewhat astounding. Yet this is precisely what Gaddafi warned against. The vehicle of the head of the United Nations' mission to Libya was attacked by rocket propelled grenades. Similarly a convoy of vehicles belonging to the British Consulate in Benghazi was attacked and had bombs hurled at it.

All the staff was accounted for, but Benghazi is nevertheless prone to assaults by militant Islamists, probably linked with Al-Qaeda, who insist on severing all ties with Western powers.

If there is any endeavour to end the conflict, it appears to be in vain. Camera crews struggle to find a picture of reassurance in post-Gaddafi Libya. But there is no escaping the fact that the country is in disarray. The 7 July landmark elections proved that a considerable number of Libyans crave a democratic Western-style nation. Yet, there are tribalists and Islamists who eschew such perceptions and yearn for the establishment of an Islamist Caliphate straddling the Mediterranean.

This is the time to buy time in Tripoli and Benghazi and the upper echelons are well aware of the predicament the political establishment in Libya faces.

Politicians love postponing problems, and Libyan politicians are no exception to the general rule. The Islamists controlled the National Transitional Council (NTC) and the tribal leaders and the secularists were sidelined. Al-Megaryef, in sharp contrast, is a Western-educated suave and sophisticated economist who holds a doctorate degree from a British university, and he does have clout among the secularists. He is widely respected because he is regarded as a victim of the atrocities of the Gaddafi regime.

According to Al-Megaryef's daughter, Asmaa, her father survived several assassination attempts -- in Rome in 1981, in Casablanca in 1984 and in Madrid in 1985 -- and was on the hit list of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Al-Megaryef defeated liberal independent Ali Zidane in a run-off by 113 votes to 85 in the 200-member GNC. The liberal Zidane was trounced and Al-Megaryef demonstrated how slickly the Islamists can repackage themselves.

However, a strain of intolerance runs through them. A presenter was promptly dismissed because she was not dressed appropriately -- she was wearing make-up and had her hair uncovered. "We believe in personal freedom and we shall strengthen individual freedom. But we are Muslims and we hold on to our social values and traditions. Everyone must understand this point," explained Mustafa Abdel-Jalil. He is known to be an Islamist with very strict views regarding women in particular.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Justice and Construction Party (JCP) appears to be sympathetic to Al-Megaryef, even though their champion was Abdel-Jalil.

The liberal National Forces Alliance of Mahmoud Jibril has taken the backseat for the time being. The real source of uncertainty is whether Al-Megaryef is capable of uniting all the various political forces of Libya and a new dispensation is at hand. If Libyans drag their feet, military muscle may be needed to enforce a more rational division of the spoils of post-Gaddafi Libya.

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Conspiracy versus truth in Rafah

Despite the penchant of pundits to blame Israel for the latest Sinai attacks, over 50 Islamist militant assaults preceding them point to a different culprit, writes Abdel-Moneim Said

The terrorist attack on the Masoura military checkpoint, while officers and soldiers were breaking their Ramadan fast, was barbarous in every sense of the word. Medical examiners found 30 bullets in the head of one of the victims, and the others were in a roughly similar state. I cannot imagine what was going on the minds of the murderers as they pulled the trigger, or in the minds of their prey, who must have seen their killers in that split second before the guns rang out. But what we can assume is that a group of "holy warriors" were inspired by certain ideas that they would call "Islamic" and that were sufficient to convince them that this Muslim solider, who was a native of some Egyptian village or city and who was conscripted into the army in accordance with our national recruitment laws, was personally responsible for the failure to apply "God's Law" in Egypt which, to the killers' minds, was therefore a godless state. The fact that Islam is the official religion of this state and the principles of Islamic law are its primary source of legislation, and that the recent elections brought to power Mohamed Mursi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, did not matter.

Actually, I was not surprised by the incident, not one bit. However, I still feel the shock of that display of inhumanity that can overcome a group of people and turn them into predators more horrifying than anything one would encounter in a science fiction or horror film. We have seen similar atrocities in the Lebanese civil war, in the Zarqawi phenomenon in Iraq, in the vicious war waged by radical Islamist militias in Algeria, in the mutilation of corpses in northern Mali today, and in Somalia at all times. This time, the massacre was in Egypt, and after perpetrating it the killers commandeered a couple of armoured vehicles and sped off toward the Israeli border where the vehicles were intercepted and the gunmen were killed by Israel forces, in spite of the mortar fire that was serving to cover them.

Soon afterwards the facts began to emerge and the Egyptian and Arab satellite networks were awash with commentaries that, more often than not, seemed liked they were lifted from CD recordings that could be pulled out and fitted to all occasions. The first fact was that Israeli security authorities had advanced knowledge of the attack and had sufficient information to take the necessary precautions and to deal with the invading force after it had eliminated the Egyptian officers and soldiers. In addition, the Israelis had passed this intelligence on to the Egyptian authorities, in accordance with the security cooperation arrangements between the two countries. Egyptian security authorities circulated this intelligence among their various branches and, perhaps, took some precautions. However, they did not take into consideration the possibility that the attack could take place at the time when people were breaking their Ramadan fast. Naturally, this gave rise to talk that might make one think that our security agencies have been dealing with problems in the Sinai on an ad hoc basis, rather than in the context of a security situation that has been deteriorating for more than a decade, ever since the process of building tunnels began on the border between Gaza and Sinai.

It was not long before the media squads began to talk of "the conspiracy" that led to 16 dead and seven wounded Egyptian soldiers. As usual, the commentator would assume a stately air of authority and inform us that in any crime one must ask cui bono (who benefits?) and conclude that since Israel is always the beneficiary of any calamity that befalls us it must be responsible. The cleverer commentator will add "directly or indirectly," so as to broaden the scope to include the possibility that Israelis recruited a group to carry out the mission. The proof, as we are told by Youssef Abu Marzouq and a host of other commentators, is that on the day before the attack Israel warned its citizens to leave Taba. From this "proof" it was established that Israel masterminded a plot in order to embarrass the Egyptian president or to drive a wedge between Egypt and Hamas, both of are which ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood. This plot entailed a massacre of Egyptian soldiers after which the perpetrators would flee to the Israeli border where they would be picked off one by one by the Israeli army, thereby burying crucial evidence. If you were so unwise as to point out that Israel had notified Egyptian authorities of the impending attack, the answer was ready to hand: Israel had to do that in order to cover up for the warning it issued to its citizens in the Sinai. Presumably the idea is that Israel should have kept its citizens in the danger zone in order to prove to the conspiracy theorists that this was not an Israeli conspiracy. Apparently, too, Israel should have been kind enough to leave a few of the assailants alive, as though Israel is famous for its mercifulness.

But let us note some facts that have been conveniently overlooked and that the Egyptian authorities already knew without Israel's help. The tunnels, as we have said, have been there for over a decade. As we learned from Egyptian sources following the incident, they increased during this period from a mere handful to more than 1,200 tunnels perforating the 14 kilometre long Egyptian-Palestinian border. That's 85 tunnels per kilometre. The authorities also knew that jihadists had begun to gather in small groups in the Sinai even before the January 2011 Revolution, but that since the revolution these groups had proliferated exponentially and had grown increasingly conspicuous, organised and assertive of their God-given authority. Today, Sinai is teeming with members of the Army of Islam, the Islamic Jihad, and a host of Al-Qaeda affiliates and would-be affiliates. What they have in common is their militant Salafist outlook, which they share with counterparts from Mali to Iraq, passing through North Africa, Sudan, Syria and Lebanon. Another thing they have in common is an abundant supply of weapons that derives from such plentiful sources as the collapsed Libyan state, which was brimming in them; Sudan, which is now divided after decades of civil war; and the failed state of Somalia. This weaponry has come in very handy in an area that has simultaneously seen a marked rise in organised crime, drug trafficking, gang-like warfare and intimidation, and murder.

In addition to the tunnels and jihadists, there was an influx of reinforcements hailing from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Egyptian prisons, which flung open their doors during the revolution to release their jihadist inmates, among others. From this point forward, operations carried out in Sinai delivered their explosive messages. The bombing of the natural gas pipelines, of which there were 15 instances, were not just a protest against sending fuel to Israel, fuel that was also destined to Jordan, Syria and Spain. It was also a message to the Egyptian state, telling it that it had no place in Sinai and who knows where else beyond. The activity through the tunnels brought a group bearing the same message, while assaults against the Arish police station and other police stations, and armed robberies of banks and post offices were carried out to the cries of "God is Great!" as though heralding the victory of a latter-day Islamic conquest.

With all that already existing and known to the Egyptian authorities, what possible need is there for a conspiracy theory? In fact, why should anyone be surprised at all at an assault against the military checkpoint in Masoura or anywhere else, for that matter? Surely some 50 separate paramilitary attacks against military sites should be a sufficient wake-up call, not just for the military authorities but also for civil society, which had long seen all talk about national security just as another bugbear that the former regime used to keep its hold on power.

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