THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE SINAI SLAUGHTER

The Curious Case of the Sinai Slaughter

Hameed Abdul Karim

When Muslims break fast during the month of Ramadan, everything stands suspended for that moment while they reflect on the day and observe prayers and make supplications for themselves and their families. This is the tradition of the Ramadan fast the world over.

So when news of the attack on Egyptian border guards killing sixteen of them broke out, Muslims were shocked and wondered what had gone wrong. The border guards, as was reported, were breaking their fasts when a gang of marauders opened fire. Usually a Muslim would be only too happy to share his food with another human being at this point of time. So it is reasonable to assume the marauders were not Muslims or maybe they carried only Muslim names and didn’t care much about their faith. 

If this slaughter was shocking what followed afterwards was rather curious. The marauders hijacked to vehicles and fled into Israeli territory with the sole purpose of attacking some military post or another. If this were true, then it is fairly reasonable to assume the marauders were Muslims. But then this supposition conflicts with the first assumption that the marauders were Muslims only in name.

Who would have thought of such a scatterbrained idea? This leads to a suggestion that the marauders were duped into doing what they did. And if that were true, then we must ask who had tricked them. The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Hamas claim that it was an Israeli operation. This claim finds credibility in the fact that the first vehicle exploded no sooner it reached the Israeli border and the other one was bombed by an Israeli jet hovering close by, incinerating all occupants inside. Thus we will not know, for some time at least, the identities of marauders. All evidence has been destroyed. This is getting rather curious.

Conspiracy Theory

Pro-western analysts might dismiss the claims made by the Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS as yet another conspiracy theory only intended to project Israel as the villain of the peace. According to them Israel can do no wrong.

But take into account the incident code named Operation Susannah when Israel’s spy agency MOSSAD recruited a group of Egyptian Jews to plant bombs at American and British owned centres and businesses in Cairo in 1954. The objective of this false flag operation was to pin the blame for the attack on the Muslim Brotherhood.  If the culprits had not been caught red handed, this too would have gone down as a conspiracy theory.  Israel went on denying its responsibility for 51 years, but then in 2005 it tacitly admitted its role when it honoured the surviving agents with certificates of appreciation by the then Israeli president Moshe Katzav. The incident is now known as the Lavon Affair, named after the defense minister at that time, Pinhas Lavon.

In September 1997 two MOSSAD agents, travelling on Canadian passports, attempted to assassinate Hamas’ leader Khaled Meshal in Jordan by injecting a fast acting poison in his ear. Unfortunately for Israel both the agents were apprehended, like pickpockets in the streets, by Meshal’s chauffer. The order to kill Meshal was issued by then and current Israeli premier Benyamin Netanyahu.   Initially he refused to provide the antidote required to save Meshal’s life preferring to sacrifice two of ‘God’s own children’ for the larger cause of Eretz Israel. But under pressure from then US President Bill Clinton, he was forced to exchange his agents for the antidote. That’s how Khaled Meshal survived. Later, in an act of vengeance, he ‘inflicted’ Monica Lewinsky on Bill Clinton. But as it turned out, Clinton managed to have the best of both worlds!

Recently Al-Jazeera carried a programme titled ‘What Killed Arafat’. At the time of his death the ‘conspiracy theory’ doing the rounds was that Yasser Arafat was killed by the same poison that was injected into Khaled Meshal’s ear. It is suspected that polonium was used to kill Arafat. Once we know what killed Arafat, we’ll know the identity of the murderers. No need to keep your fingers crossed on that issue, though.  

SCAF

There is a possibility that Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed (SCAF) may have worked hand in glove with the perpetrators of the crime in Sinai. It is rumoured that Egyptian army personnel have huge assets in Egypt and elsewhere. According to some estimates their share of the Egyptian economy amounts to around 40%. The suggestion that somehow Hamas, or some splinter Palestinian group, was behind the Sinai attack sounds ridiculous considering that Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood read from the same page on the Middle East issue. Besides, the first casualty of the Sinai attack was the Palestinians in Gaza when SCAF (not President Mursi) shut down the Rafah Border Crossing which was opened in the first flush of the revolution after remaining closed  for so many years under Hosni Mubarak and his military on the orders of the US and Israel.

Consider, if you will, the Reuter report that said the residents of the area didn’t see any tell tale signs of a battle when SCAf rushed troops and tanks into the area to rein in the remaining ‘terrorists’ that were responsible for the attack on the border post. They said, according to the same report, that they heard gunshots being fired in the air to create an illusion of a tough battle taking place between Egyptian forces and the ‘remaining terrorists’.

The whole affair has put Dr. Mohammed Mursi in a spot. And it is painfully obvious that the army would like nothing better to be rid of him or any other form of civilian rule. Perhaps the purpose behind the attack was to create chaos and confusion in Egypt precipitating an army take over once again? The US, UK, France and Israel will like nothing better. That’s for sure.