The homeland’s guards.. Mujahideen of the Sinai from the October Championships to fighting Daesh

“We did not have satellites, but we had the honest eyes of our mujahideen children in Sinai. They made the Israeli sites an open book to the armed forces, and without them, it would not have been the October war.”

These are the words of the director of military intelligence at the time of the October 1973 war, Major General Fouad Nassar, after the success of the Egyptian army in crossing and breaking the Barlev line. He said these words in front of the late President Anwar Sadat to show the world the importance of the strong role played by the Mujahideen of Sinai during the 1967 War of Attrition then in the great October war. And how they supplief the armed forces and intelligence with all information about the Israeli enemy, and their activities in the face of the Zionist aggression on Egyptian territory.

The Sinai Peninsula comprises at least 11 tribes. These tribes are concentrated in the coastal areas to the north, in the eastern areas of the Canal and the Gulf of Suez.

El-Marga’a reviews the behind scenes of Sinai’s Mujahideen tournaments, and opens the file of their great role before, during and after the war.

Sinai’s people played a major role after the 1967 setback and through the war of attrition until the victory of October 1973, as they provided the military intelligence officers with the information  of the enemy’ movements.

At the time of the 1967 setback, Sinai Bedouins took some soldiers and took them from mountain to mountain for six months away from the eyes of the enemy. Then they moved them to Cairo. After the setback, Sinai’s people went to the Military Intelligence Department to volunteer with the army.

Sinai’s people were asked to carry out three basic and very important tasks for the Egyptian army: “collecting information about the enemy army, photographing the centres of the enemy’s army bases, and carrying out the intercept operations behind the lines and outposts of the enemy army.”

In order to increase cooperation, the Sinai tribes were gathered under the banner of the Sinai Arab Organization, whose members reached 750 members. The late President Gamal Abdel Nasser established this organisation after the Israeli occupation of Sinai after the setback of June 1967. It was officially announced in December 1968.

Israel described the heroes of this organization as “ghosts”, where they carried out nearly 700 military operations against the occupation forces, including the bombing of the headquarters of the Israeli intelligence, and the destruction of many lines of transportation.

The armed forces used about 110 civilian heroes, mostly from the Bedouin tribes of Sinai and from the governorates of the Canal (Port Said, Ismailia and Suez). The Sinai Arab Organization attracted a large number of the people of the Gaza Strip, together with officers of the Egyptian intelligence, its main target was to resist the Israeli occupation of Sinai.

The organization’s members were trained on several tasks, including the use of mines, explosives, bombs and attacks against Israel. The enemy suffered heavy losses in soldiers and equipment. The organization’s activity increased during the war of attrition and decreased after the cease-fire was announced in August 1970.

The Sinai sheikhs slapped Israel on October 31, 1968, when they brought them together after the occupation to expose them to the Sinai Peninsula declaration of separation from Egypt and declare it an independent state. In this context, the Israelis worked to coax the Sinai people and encourage them to independence.

Where the Minister of Foreign Affairs then Golda Ma’aer and the then Minister of Defense in Israel, Moshe Dayan, met a number of Sinai sheikhs and gave them gifts and money to convince them of the idea of converting them into an independent state. The Sinai tribes only informed the Egyptian intelligence about this plan.

The “Al-Hassana Conference” was held, and Israel then mobilized international newspapers and international entities as members of the United Nations Organization to await the declaration of the State of Sinai. However, the Sheikh of the Mujahideen Sheikh Salem Al-Harash of the Bayadiya tribe, speaking on behalf of the sheikhs of the Sinai tribes saying:

“Sinai is Egyptian and will remain Egyptian. You are only occupying and we are rejecting internationalization. The Sinai command is in the hands of Egypt. Sinai is 100% Egyptian”.

According to the strategic and military expert, Major General Ahmed Abdel Halim, the decision to start the battle at 2 pm was dependent on the success of a pilot operation of the Mujahideen in cooperation with the military intelligence.

The Israeli army carried out an experimental attack on the Israeli army in the area of Al-Harith north of Qantara. The soldiers managed to destroy an entire Israeli patrol and killed all of its members. The decision was made on the date of the war on the day following the start of the night war.

Egypt has never forgotten that heroic role of the Sinai Mujahideen. In 1987, it founded an association named Sinai Heroes, in recognition of their role, which contributed to the victory of October, called the “Association of the Mujahideen Sinai.” The association includes about 757 mujahideen spread in the governorates of Suez Canal. The late President Sadat honored them by granting them the privileges of the first class.

In the 1980s, Salafist groups began to move to Sinai with the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces from the last  border governorate’s cities, and the return of Sinai to the full Egyptian sovereignty. At that time the Salafist ideas flowed to Sinai in 1981, but it was limited to spreading the religious call (Da’wa) only.