Egyptian Army's Killing of Tourists Highlights Western Desert Threat

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The Egyptian military, on September 15, killed 12 civilians, including at least two Mexican tourists, in an attack on a tourist convoy in the country's Western Desert (al-Ahram, September 14). According to reports from survivors, the group of 22-who were traveling off-road in four vehicles-were attacked by aircraft and helicopters when they stopped for a break at midday near the al-Wahat area (al-Jazeera, September 15). Details remain confused, with the Egyptian government initially claiming that the tourists did not have the required permit and were traveling in a "restricted zone" at night, although this later was proven incorrect and the tour group appears to have even had a police escort at the time of the attack (al-Bawaba, September 14). The military's heavy-handed attack, however, aptly illustrates increasing official fears about a growing militant presence along the country's 700-mile border with Libya, where a range of a Islamist militant groups, including offshoot of the global Islamic State group, remain active.

Just two days before the attack on the tourists, the Egyptian wing of the Islamic State, issued a statement on Twitter, claiming to have clashed with Egyptian soldiers in the Western Desert and to have additionally beheaded an alleged spy for the Egyptian government. According to the statement, the "soldiers of the caliphate" had attacked Egyptian military forces with light and medium weapons, including RPGs, allegedly leading to the government troops "fleeing and dragging their tails in defeat" (SITE, September 13). The largest militant attack in the region to date occurred in July 2014, when around 20 militants attacked an army checkpoint near Farafra Oasis, approximately midway between the Libyan border and the Nile Valley (Mada Masr, July 20, 2014). Previously, in August 2014, the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, a Sinai-based militant organization now affiliated with the Islamic State and known as Wilayat Sinai, shot dead a U.S. oil worker near Karama, on the eastern edge of the Western Desert (al-Ahram, December 1, 2014).

Egypt's Western Desert is extremely sparsely populated, even so more the country's Sinai region, where a significant Islamist militant uprising is also underway, and the local population is concentrated along the coast and a several small oasis settlements, often widely separated by tracts of high, inhospitable desert. Nevertheless, the Western Desert region's small settlements have historically been hubs of illegal trading, often facilitated by strong tribal networks, such as the Awlad Ali tribe, whose historic territory straddles the Libyan and Egyptian border, and a limited police presence. Siwa Oasis, for instance, is a long-standing hub for arms-smuggling operations between Libya and Egypt, as is the coastal city of Mersa Matruh (Youm7, June 1, 2013). Although not widely publicized compared to similar operations in Sinai, military efforts to combat both arms smuggling and potential militant infiltration in the region have been ongoing for some time. For instance, in mid-August, the military destroyed five alleged militant vehicles southeast of Siwa and captured five others; a military aircraft also crashed during the operation, killing its four-man crew (Daily News Egypt, August 14).

Notwithstanding the latest incident, Egyptian efforts to secure the Libyan frontier are likely to rely on such air and ground interdictions rather than, for instance, building a permanent fence or barrier across the border, which would be prohibitively expensive to construct, maintain and police. In light of this, further incidents in the region, both Egyptian Army actions against militants and potential militant attacks in the region on both civilian and governmental infrastructure, should be expected.