Egypt

While we weren't looking, an Arab economy took off

CNBC, by Elizabether McBride

Ahmed Ismail | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Egyptian women are seen as they buy vegetables in an open-air marketplace in Cairo, Egypt on September 23, 2014.

A year ago, Egypt's economy had been crushed by political turmoil. The Arab Spring had culminated in a military takeover and the installation of the current president, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. There were curfews and scenes of violence on the streets of Cairo. In the words of one Egyptian businessman, "everyone was looking to send wire transfers out."

This fall, a far different picture is emerging as the country makes a surprisingly quick—and in the West, largely unnoticed—recovery.

Though major challenges remain—including weekly violence perpetrated by the ousted Muslim Brotherhood—investment is flowing into the country again. The International Monetary Fund forecasts healthy gross domestic product growth next year. And in August, when Al-Sisi called for Egyptian citizens to finance a long-planned expansion of the Suez Canal, money poured in.

"It was hard to find a bank that had (certificates) to sell," said John Shehata, who focuses on Africa and the Middle East for San Francisco-based law firm Orrick. Many of his friends and peers purchased the certificates, which pay 12 percent annually and have a five-year maturity. "(Egyptians) are trying to help the country, but they're also investing in something that might explode in growth." 

Within about two months, the country's central bank said Egyptians had purchased $8.5 billion worth of investment certificates, according to the Associated Press. This month, the government contracted with companies to begin dredging the expansion of one of the world's most important waterways. 

Whether the canal project meets its ambitious timeline—three years—and whether the Egyptian economy's surprising rebound continues are both open questions. GDP growth in 2015 is forecast at 3.5 percent, according to a report issued by the International Monetary Fund on Monday. That's up from 1.8 percent in 2011, 2.2 percent in 2012, 2.1 percent last year, and 2.2 percent this year.

But the prospects for medium-term growth remain "modest," the IMF said. Growth is hampered by high jobless rates among young people and women, as well as government debt. 

In the short term, the rebound is coming in sectors including energy, infrastructure and health care, reflecting the country's huge population of more than 83 million, observers said. 

Abraaj Group, an emerging markets private equity firm with $7.5 billion in assets under management and more than 25 offices around the globe, invested $200 million in Egyptian companies in the first half of this year, compared with none last year. One company it invested in was Integrated Diagnostics Holdings. 

However, investors, especially those in the West, walk a narrow tightrope in Egypt. On one hand, Al-Sisi wasn't democratically elected, so some investors are reluctant to embrace the government publicly. On the other hand, the ouster of democratically elected Mohammed Morsi resulted in a decline in turmoil—which meant life, including investment and growth, could go on as normal.

"The real reason for Egyptian growth is that the army ... is ruling the country with the due order," Shehata said.

Investors from oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invest in Egypt because it's in their interest to maintain the country as an island of relative stability and because of its prospects for growth, said Ahmed El Alfi, who also runs a Cairo-based venture fund, Sawari Ventures. Both nations are predominantly Sunni as well.

The technology sector is growing, too. El Alfi is also founder of a five-building tech campus and accelerator, formerly part of the American University campus, that houses 85 start-ups. News Corp purchased one of the start-ups, and Samsung Ventures just invested in another, he said. 

One of the start-ups in the campus is SuperMama, a content site that offers Arabic language information for mothers. Yasmin El-Mehairy founded it in October 2011. After the unrest, only two advertisers were confident enough to book ads on her site. 

"There was also the problem of safety. We are a 90 percent women team. In the summer of 2012, the area around our office was completely unsafe because of the riots," she said. To keep the company afloat, "we had to beg, borrow and steal." 

After this more stable year, the company, whose offices overlook Tahrir Square, started growing again. Now SuperMama has 1.35 million monthly visitors, a staff of 14, and is operating on a break-even basis. 

"The point is, we've survived the hardest time in Egypt's economy and we're growing," she wrote to her venture investors recently. "Our small team is as dedicated and enthusiastic as ever."

via www.cnbc.com

This, Also, Is the Middle East | Christopher M. Schroeder

Huffington Post, Christopher M Schroeder

I reflected the other day on how when I was in Business School in the 1990s, the three immutable laws of the world order were: 1) Japan had won it all; 2) China could never have growth without Jeffersonian Democracy; and 3) India would be a basket case for decades.

Of course, a few years later no one was saying any of this. And I can assure you that even when the change was accepted, no one envisioned that within two decades one of the largest initial public offerings of stock in history would be an eCommerce company from China -- and that the vast majority of its value creation relied, in no way, on the West, let alone the United States.

This reflection all came to me after giving a talk to 200 or so Washington foreign policy types -- including the next generation -- during which I asked how many knew of Jack Ma (the founder of Ali Baba, the Chinese company described above). Perhaps four hands went up.

Personal narratives change slowly, if at all, and institutional narratives even slower still. Thus I should not be surprised that people come up empty when I ask them to guess which region I am describing: where nearly 400 million individuals share the same language and much culturally; has a higher per capital GDP than India or China; has one of the fastest growing Internet adoption rates and smart phone penetration well exceeding 50%; is a mass tourist destination with only a tiny fraction booked online; has a mass consumer base with eCommerce relatively nascent; where 7% of the world seeks content in its language, but such content comprises less than 1% of what is online globally; and, has a hungry new generation, in fact a youth bubble, seeking economic opportunity.

They are shocked that I am describing the Middle East.

They are shocked because it runs counter to our narratives of historic political unrest, instability and violence. They are shocked because they are flooded today with the terrible reports of ISIS, some 12,000 members strong -- well-armed and well-funded perhaps, and certainly brutal -- without wondering what the 400 million other people in the region may be doing or thinking about each day.

They are shocked not because these are some very difficult times in the Arab world -- indeed these are -- but because it is very difficult to hold two conflicting ideas in our minds.

The 12,000 or so ISIS members absolutely could fester into something much worse and viral. But 18 months ago I judged a startup competition in Beirut, Lebanon with over 14,000 young people from around the Arab World taking their economic futures into their own hands. A friend of mine was at a TEDx gathering in Cairo last December. In the midst of great turmoil in Egypt, he saw nearly 5,000 kids gathered to solve problems, and over 50,000 Egyptians from across the nation were streaming the event live, wanting to learn more.

Last week I attended RiseUp Egypt 2014. Over two days, nearly 4,000 young Egyptians from around the country gathered at the GrEEK Campus, once a part of the American University of Cairo and a baseball throw away from Tahir Square. A leading visionary and venture capitalist, Ahmed Alfi, is making the GrEEK Campus into the largest shared work space in the Middle East, among the dozens that are springing up there. Over 40 journalists were present to cover this amazing event. Guess what? Not one was from the West.

It would be naive, and in fact immoral, to NOT concentrate on brutality and unchecked violence. Is it any more so to not understand what new opportunities and tools are available -- and to embrace the new futures they make possible?

Here is a little secret we have all learned: as new nations and markets and middle classes rise from difficult and even brutal histories, change is not for the faint of heart. Great displacement and great pain come with it. Repressive regimes don't go quietly into the night in their top-down focus on maintaining control, even as their citizens use bottom-up approaches and the tools of technology to solve their own problems and grasp opportunities in their backyards. They are no longer waiting for permission. 

But something else is happening also.

For the first time in history, the Middle East -- and all emerging worlds -- have progressively ubiquitous access to technology. This is not one more paean to some high-tech utopian wonderment. It is simply a statement of fact: within the decade two-thirds of humanity will have the equivalent of a super computer -- the computing power that put a man on the moon -- in their pockets. 

They will have unprecedented access to each other, to ideas that worked elsewhere and that they now know can work for them, to essentially all of human knowledge at their fingertips. They will use even basic technology -- a texting-capable, old-school phone -- to move money and simple crafts to markets they could never before reach. They will have access to supplemental education in ways once reserved only for the wealthy to compensate for their failing education systems. They will find clever ways to address problems because millions of more people with great talent and genius -- who have always been there -- can now engage.

I can't tell you what Syria or Iraq will look like in a year, let alone three. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that what I wrote is true now and will only expand in coming years.

How and whether we choose to understand this new narrative is up to us, but it is also an exercise in engaging in a world as it is rather than what we fear it must always be.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Demolition begins as Egypt starts work on Gaza buffer zone

The National 

Smoke rises after a house is demolished during a military operation by Egyptian security forces in Rafah, near the border with southern Gaza Strip. Egypt has started its plans to build a buffer zone in the border area after at least 33 Egyptian security personnel were killed on Friday in the Sinai Peninsula bordering Israel and Gaza. Suhaib

CAIRO // Egypt began setting up a buffer zone along its border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip on Wednesday to prevent militant infiltration and arms smuggling following a wave of deadly attacks.

The move, which will see about 800 homes demolished, comes after a suicide bombing in the Sinai Peninsula Friday that killed at least 30 soldiers.

A senior official in northern Sinai said the creation of the buffer with the Palestinian territory was “vital for national security and stability.”

The authorities want to establish a 500-metre wide buffer along about 10 kilometres of the border with Gaza, according to officials.

Witnesses in the border town of Rafah reported seeing dozens of families leaving, along with lorries loaded with furniture.

And bulldozers were reported to have begun destroying several long-abandoned houses along the frontier.

The authorities previously said the families affected would be compensated, but not all residents are convinced.

“We are for national and border security, but not at the cost of our homes and interests,” said Wissam Al Agha, a doctor in Rafah, whose house and land fall in the area demarcated for the zone.

North Sinai Governor Abdel Fattah Harhur said emergency assistance will be provided to everyone, with families receiving 900 Egyptian pounds to cover rent for three months.

He added, in remarks to reporters, that they will also receive monetary compensation for their properties.

An analyst said the buffer marks a shift in Egypt’s strategy to confront militant attacks.

“It is an operation to isolate terrorists in an area empty of people, in turn facilitating targeting of terrorists and also reducing civilian casualties,” said Eman Ragad, an expert on regional security at Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

“But we are not sure whether this area is a stronghold of terrorists or just an operational base.”

Egypt suspects Palestinian militants of aiding militant attacks that have increased since the army removed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year.

The military has also stepped up the destruction of tunnels with Gaza that it says are used to smuggle arms, food and money by Palestinian Hamas militant group.

The army says it has destroyed more than 1,600 such tunnels since Mr Morsi’s removal.

“Families whose houses have openings to these tunnels will not be compensated,” governor Harhur told private television channel CBC Extra.

Following Friday’s bombing, Egypt imposed a three-month state of emergency in parts of northern Sinai and closed the Rafah crossing into Gaza — the only entry to the Palestinian territory not controlled by Israel.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said the attack was carried out with “external support,” ordering heightened security measures.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Islamist militants in the peninsula have killed scores of policemen and soldiers since Mr Morsi’s removal, vowing revenge against a police crackdown on his supporters that has left more than 1,400 dead.

* Agence France-Presse

via www.thenational.ae

While Egypt is at war

Today, with the flurry of attacks on Egyptian soil and men, Egypt is unequivocally at war—a different kind of war altogether, one Egypt has not been exposed to before. Egypt fought many wars against colonialists, invaders, occupiers, and conquerors, but a war against terror, it hasn’t, at least in this magnetude. Still, it is a bonafide war, one that may last for years, and more of a war than many of the preceding ones. 

Observing Egypt and Egyptians, one would think things are pretty much the same: Egyptians are going about their businesses in the usual fashion—celebrating festivals and weddings, crowding resorts, and going to work. But behind this facade, Egyptians are incensed.

We need not list the heinous attacks that took place in the last 18 months, but hundreds of Egyptian men were ambushed and slaughtered. The same Egyptians that go about their businesses in a usual fashion are worried sick about their country, tearfully mourning their dead, and hurting for the families of lost ones. 

Yet in the midst of this sorrow, activists neglect to show their support or empathy. They remain dedicated to their cause: civil rights, which is fundamental, but should not blind them from reciprocating the sorrow, condoning the terror, and sharing in Egypt’s pain.

In these trying times, the Egyptian security apparatus should focus on one single front: militant extremists. It neither has the power nor the will to fight outspoken delinquents or juvenile perennial activists. Yes, some Egyptians have been curtailed and stopped from protesting and leading a do-as-you-please life. Others have been detained, charged, and sentenced, if not because they broke the law then to pare down similar actions. 

The civil rights movement is also furious with Egypt’s new NGO laws. The new guidelines are looked upon with disdain and deafening chatter, but where in the world is any group allowed to function independently with no restrictions? Where in the world is LE 250 million spent without guidelines from authorities?

When Al Jazeera’ s Alaa Sadek hails the happenings in Sinai, Egyptians expect it of him and Al Jazeera, and they totally ignore him.    

But when seemingly dedicated Egyptians go as far as making fun of the massacre that took place in Sina, respect towards them plummets—they, their causes, and even rights, become worthless.  

When Alaa Abdel Fattah ridicules the army’s ability to protect itself and suggests that it resorts to Falcon Security, the company asked to secure universities, Egyptians are abhorred, as they did when he blatantly insulted the mothers and wives of army officers calling them whores. This is not a call for civil rights, it is plain malicious cussing.    

Alaa gets the brunt of the backfire because he continues to speak ill of the army, which Egyptians now applaud, and he rants, in vile language, against Sisi, whom they consider their saviour. He also receives the brunt of this fury because Egyptians believed his intentions were good, and that he should be an example to other young Egyptians. They hoped he could lead tomorrow but alas the hopes in Alaa and other youths are shattered, their causes dwarfed. And still, he opts to keep at it at a time when emotions are high, and while Egyptians are weary of the enemy and exhausted of bloodshed.

In an atrocious war such as the one Egypt faces today, Egypt needs all Egyptians to collaborate and create a unified force, but it seems that personal vendettas and causes have blinded some from realizing what Egypt is going through today. 

Today Egypt must focus on its sole battle, the battle against terrorism. Egyptians consider those who opt to ignore this ordeal traitors to Egypt. 

Egypt considers Gaza wall to block Hamas terror attacks

Fox News, Paul Alster

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, center, speaks in front of the state-run TV ahead of a military funeral for troops killed in an assault in the Sinai Peninsula, as he stands with army commanders in Cairo. (AP Photo/MENA, Mohammed Samaha) (The Associated Press)

Once again, a government is considering building a wall along its border with Gaza and destroying tunnels it claims Hamas uses to conduct terrorist attacks – but this time it is Egypt and not Israel.

In the wake of Friday’s attack in northern Sinai, which killed 33 Egyptian soldiers, Cairo has raised the idea of a building an eight-mile barrier along its border with Gaza to deter Islamist terrorists from moving in and out of the Palestinian territory.

“There is a big conspiracy against us,” Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said in a live, televised address Saturday, in which he blamed “foreign powers” for the atrocity and said Egypt is locked in an “existential war”.

Egypt, which has declared a three-month state of emergency in northern Sinai, also cancelled its planned role as mediator between Israel and Hamas in talks aimed at maintaining a ceasefire that has held since the end of the summer conflict.

Friday’s sophisticated terrorist attack - which Egyptian authorities have indicated likely came from Gaza - was launched on Egyptian troops with devastating effect. Old tunnels that had yet to be destroyed by Egyptian forces or newly-dug tunnels that had not been detected were likely used in the attack that combined the use of a suicide bomber on one hand, with rocket propelled grenades and roadside bombs on the other.

Local Egyptian media has reported that Sisi has sent reinforcements to bolster 12 existing battalions as well as sending Egypt’s elite 777th and 999th units to strategic locations in northern Sinai and that helicopter gunships killed six terrorist on Sunday. Egypt is facing a serious threat in Sinai from, among others, the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis Islamist terror group, which appears to be using Gaza as a safe haven. The terrorists are believed to be crossing via terror tunnels, even though Egypt has reportedly destroyed more than 1,800 underground passages in a bid to clamp down on Hamas and other terror groups operating there.

“I understand [Egypt] would like to create a buffer zone where there are no houses and no vegetation.”

- Zvi Mazel, former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt

Hamas, which has launched thousands of rockets into Israel from Gaza’s northern border in the last year, has also sought to strike a blow at al-Sisi’s forces as payback for the former Egyptian military leader’s overthrowing of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ parent organization.

Following Friday’s attack, the Rafah crossing between southern Gaza and Egypt was closed immediately and will reportedly remain closed indefinitely. Hamas leaders have reportedly stated that Gaza will “explode” if the Rafah crossing is not re-opened quickly.

While the southern crossing into Egypt is closed, other border crossings with Israel remain open. Humanitarian and trade supplies are being delivered by Israel to the more than 1.8 million residents of Gaza whose Hamas government fought a 50-day war against them this summer. The war cost the lives of a reported 2,000 Gazans, according to Hamas government figures, and 70 Israelis. Recent independent analysis of the Gazan dead suggests that as many as half were terrorist combatants.

The success of Israel’s controversial West Bank separation barrier in lowering suicide attacks on the Jewish state by as much as 90 percent, appears to have not gone unnoticed by Egypt which is now facing a comparable problem from Gaza-based Palestinian terrorists. Egypt appears to be weighing a similar solution, although some regional experts believe there may be other alternatives.

“I’m not sure they are going to build a wall,” 

Zvi Mazel, Israeli Ambassador to Egypt from 1996-2001, told FoxNews.com. “I understand [Egypt] would like to create a buffer zone where there are no houses and no vegetation.”

Mazel noted that to do so, Egypt would have to expel 100,000 Bedouins from northern Sinai to establish such a zone.

Mazel believes the “foreign powers” Al Sisi referred to as fomenting attacks launched from Gaza and funding terror operations in Sinai are Qatar, Turkey and Iran.

“He knows better than anyone else who is responsible for encouraging these terrorists,” Mazel said. “The terrorists in Sinai constitute the threat, but someone is giving them money, and the money has most likely come from those countries.”

Paul Alster is an Israel-based journalist. Follow him on Twitter @paul_alster and visit his website: www.paulalster.com

via www.foxnews.com

APNewsBreak: Egypt's Birth Rate Dramatically Rises

Via ABC News, By MERRIT KENNEDY Associated Press

FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013 file photo, an Egyptian woman prays while holding her daughter in a street on the first day of Eid al-Ahda in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt’s fertility rate, which has been falling since at least 1980, has risen...

Egypt's fertility rate, which has been falling since at least 1980, has risen dramatically in the last six years, according to the results of a new survey released Monday to The Associated Press.

The news raises serious economic concerns for the Arab world's most populous country, whose economy has been staggering since its 2011 revolt.

The survey, conducted jointly with Egypt's Ministry of Health and Population and a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded organization, said the number of births per woman has increased from 3 to 3.5 since 2008. Egypt's fertility rate had been steadily decreasing since at least 1980, when the survey began.

"It's a stunning result," said John Casterline, a professor at the Ohio State University who focuses on fertility rates. Casterline said it is extremely unusual for a country's fertility rate to suddenly increase after decreasing for years.

Researchers say the reasons behind the striking uptick are largely unclear.

"It's probably related to female education and labor participation," said Samer Atallah, an economics professor at the American University in Cairo. He said that there has not been a substantial increase in female labor participation during this past period.

The survey also showed a small, 2 percent decrease in the use of contraceptives, including both modern and traditional methods. The survey said 3 percent fewer women obtain contraceptives from public health facilities compared to 2008.

The primary effect, Casterline said, is that "this keeps the Egyptian population young." The challenge will be putting young people through school and eventually creating jobs in an already-stretched labor market with high unemployment, he said.

"The births today, they have consequences for decades," he added.

Atallah agreed.

"Given that we do not invest substantially in education, given that we do not invest substantially in health care systems or facilities, it's going to be a very difficult task to turn this fertility rate around to something positive," Atallah said.

via abcnews.go.com

Egypt must target neediest in food subsidy reforms

By Maggie Fick

People queue for bread at a bakery in Cairo March 2, 2014. CREDIT: REUTERS/AL YOUM AL SAABI NEWSPAPER

(Reuters) - Egypt's reform of its subsidized food system must do more to help the neediest if the government is to begin reducing "huge pockets of poverty", the top World Food Programme official in the country said on Monday.

Failure to tackle those issues could revive popular discontent that has toppled two presidents in three years.

But reform will be a tall order in the Arab world's most populous country, where some 68 million - about 75 percent of Egyptians - have ration cards that entitle them to such subsidizes, and where, according to U.N. data, four million of the poorest Egyptians have fallen through the system's cracks.

Bread in particular is a politically explosive issue in Egypt, where for decades millions have depended on subsidized loaves that sell for less than a seventh of the real cost.

"(The government) needs to do more on the targeting and they are very conscious of the fact, but first I think they want to strengthen the systems and then (work) on targeting," WFP's Egypt representative and country director, Lubna Alamen, told Reuters in an interview.

In the Arab world's most populous country, with a population of 84 million, four million without access to government food aid might seem relatively small number, Alamen said. "But it's sizeable," she argued. "Four million in another place who need assistance makes it a big emergency."

"FLOUR MAFIA"

However, instead of helping the most vulnerable, bread subsidies have fostered a thriving black market and a "flour mafia", according to government officials and industry experts.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government has begun targeting leakages in that system and has also moved quickly on the previously untouchable issue of fuel subsidies, another inefficient, budget-draining expenditure.

Subsidies of food and energy products have traditionally eaten up at least a quarter of Egypt's budget, and the government is trying to reduce that burden to rein in a budget deficit that last fiscal year stood at 12 percent of GDP.

The fuel price hikes, introduced last summer shortly after Sisi took office, were accompanied by relief measures including free transport, and the government has said it will soon start a new cash benefit program targeting the most vulnerable.

These are steps in the right direction toward creating a "social safety net" but reforms should also include phasing out beneficiaries who do not need subsidized food, Alamen said.

She praised Supplies Minister Khaled Hanafi for widening the range of subsidized commodities offered to citizens with ration cards, saying that offering goods beyond bread, oil and a small number of other items is important for a population suffering from high malnutrition rates and poor access to a diverse diet.

"The issue of food security in Egypt is purchasing power, it's an access issue: food is available but (people) can't afford to buy it," she said, citing WFP research that found poor citizens resort to "coping mechanisms" such as cutting down on buying protein and dairy foodstuffs and relying exclusively on carbohydrates such as bread, rice and potato chips.

She said that the economic fallout of the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak had made life harder on poor Egyptians, especially in regions like Upper Egypt, where high poverty rates go hand in hand with what the WFP calls a "triple burden of malnutrition: high stunting rates, anemia, and obesity".

Alamen said that gradually reducing rates of chronic stunted growth, caused when children do not receive adequate nutrients before the age of two, is a long-term task.

It will be made easier, however, when more citizens in need are given state aid to buy more meat and vegetables.

Another effort is linked to subsidizing school meals, an incentive for parents to keep their children at school. WFP funds this program in Upper Egypt and in other poor areas such as Fayoum, a governorate south of Cairo where farming is a main industry and children often work family fields.

"The government has taken a very strong decision that they will have 'safety nets' as one of the key things to give to the people," Alamen said. "They have done a lot ... but I think there is a long way to go to reform everything."

via www.reuters.com

Assad's warnings start to ring true in Turkey

Excerpt from Assad's warning start to ring true in Turkey. Via Yahoo News, Reuters by By Samia Nakhoul

BEIRUT (Reuters) - When Sunni rebels rose up against Syria's Bashar al-Assad in 2011, Turkey reclassified its protégé as a pariah, expecting him to lose power within months and join the autocrats of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen on the scrap heap of the "Arab Spring".

Assad, in contrast, shielded diplomatically by Russia and with military and financial support from Iran and its Shi’ite allies in Lebanon's Hezbollah, warned that the fires of Syria’s sectarian war would burn its neighbors.

For Turkey, despite the confidence of Tayyip Erdogan, elected this summer to the presidency after 11 years as prime minister and three straight general election victories, Assad’s warning is starting to ring uncomfortably true.

Turkey’s foreign policy is in ruins. Its once shining image as a Muslim democracy and regional power in the NATO alliance and at the doors of the European Union is badly tarnished.

Amid a backlash against political Islam across the region Erdogan is still irritating his Arab neighbors by offering himself as a Sunni Islamist champion.

The world, meanwhile, is transfixed by the desperate siege of Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish town just over Turkey’s border, under attack by extremist Sunni fighters of the Islamic State (IS) who are threatening to massacre its defenders.

Erdogan has enraged Turkey’s own Kurdish minority – about a fifth of the population and half of all Kurds across the region – by seeming to prefer that IS jihadis extend their territorial gains in Syria and Iraq rather than that Kurdish insurgents consolidate local power.

The forces holding on in Kobani are part of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), closely allied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a 30-year war against the Turkish state and is now holding peace talks with Ankara.

BIG RISKS

Meanwhile, Turkish tanks stood idly by as the unequal fight raged between the PYD and IS, while Erdogan said both groups were "terrorists" and Kobani would soon fall. It was a public relations disaster.

It drew criticism from NATO allies in the US-led coalition, which has bombed jihadi positions around the town in coordination with the PYD. It also prompted Kurdish riots across south-east Turkey resulting in more than 40 dead.

At the same time, Turkey's air force bombed PKK positions near the Iraqi border for the first time in two years, calling into question the 2013 ceasefire declared by Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed PKK leader. PKK commanders warned that if Turkey let Kobani fall, they would go back to war.

Yet now that the United States has dropped arms to Kobani’s defenders, Erdogan has been forced to relent and open a Turkish corridor for Peshmerga fighters from Iraq to reinforce Kobani.

Turkish officials fear this will provoke reprisals in Turkey by IS, activating networks it built during the two years the Erdogan government allowed jihadi volunteers to cross its territory to fight in Syria. Almost anything Turkey does now comes with big risks.

via news.yahoo.com

Egypt to set up buffer zone with Gaza Strip

The Times of Israel 

Egyptian Army personnel supervise the destruction of tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip at the border, near the town of Rafah, northern Sinai, Egypt, September 2013. (photo credit: AP/AP Television) Read more: Egypt to set up buffer zone with Gaza Strip 

Egypt is preparing to set up a buffer zone of between 1.5 and 3 kilometers with the Gaza Strip, an Egyptian daily reported Saturday, following a deadly attack in Sinai on Friday that left over 30 Egyptian soldiers dead.

Forces were expected to start clearing the zone of structures and vegetation in the coming days, Al-Youm al-Sabaa reported. Army patrols were also set to be increased along the coast from El-Arish, in the northern Sinai peninsula, to the Egyptian border town of Rafah, in an effort to thwart the maritime smuggling of supplies to terrorists.

According to a report in the Egyptian al-Ahram cited by Israel Radio, which quotes an anonymous intelligence official, the perpetrators of the attack Friday infiltrated the peninsula via a tunnel leading from the Gaza Strip. The same source added that although the Egyptian army destroyed over 1,500 tunnels that ran between Gaza and Sinai, some have been rebuilt and were being used to smuggle weapons, funds and manpower.

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Saturday that the deadly assault on an army checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula was a “foreign-funded operation.”

Roaring in front of cameras on Saturday, el-Sissi said there were foreign powers that wanted to “break the back of Egypt,” without elaborating. He vowed to take drastic measures to uproot the militants and said Egypt was engaged in an “extensive war” that would last a long time.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi is flanked by members of the high military council as they observe a minute of silence for the soldiers who were killed in the Sinai Peninsula. October 25, 2014 (Photo credit: Egyptian Presidency/AFP)

“There is a big conspiracy against us,” he said while standing with army commanders ahead of a military funeral for the slain soldiers and officers.

Egypt declared a three-month state of emergency Friday in the north and center of the Sinai Peninsula after the attack, the presidency said.

The measures began on Saturday at 0300 GMT “for a duration of three months,” the presidency said in a statement in the wake of the deadliest attack on the security forces since the army deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi last year.

The decision was also taken to close the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip.

“The army and the police will take all necessary measures to tackle the dangers of terrorism and its financing, to preserve the security of the region… and protect the lives of citizens,” the presidential decree said.

The bombing was carried out by a suspected jihadist who rammed the checkpoint with a vehicle packed with explosives, security officials said.

Gunmen also shot dead an officer and wounded two soldiers on Friday at another checkpoint south of El-Arish, security officials said.

Since Morsi’s ouster, more than 1,400 of his supporters have been killed in a crackdown by the authorities.

Over 15,000 others have been jailed including Morsi and the top leadership of his Muslim Brotherhood, and more than 200 sentenced to death in speedy trials.

Relations between Egypt and Gaza’s rulers Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, soured considerably after the ouster.

via www.timesofisrael.com

‘Heinous’ Sinai attacks must be quashed

Well said. The National, National Editorial 

sraeli soldiers patrol the area near the Israeli-Egyptian border after coming under fire from extremists based in Sinai. In El Arish, around 30 Egyptian soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing. Photo: Amir Cohen / Reuters

Egypt’s Sinai peninsula has long acted as the flashpoint for undercurrents at play in the wider region, a dynamic that is reflected in the escalating series of attacks by Islamist militants against Egyptian troops in the peninsula. This trend reached a new peak on Friday when more than 30 soldiers were killed in two attacks, the worst since Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi was in office.

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi responded by declaring a three-month state of emergency in the peninsula, a move that will include imposing a nightly curfew and ought to help bring greater stability. Before entering politics, Mr El Sisi was the military commander in the peninsula, so he is fully aware of the situation.

His actions to end this bloody internal insurgency deserve support, just as the attackers responsible for this latest attack warrant condemnation. A statement from the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the attack as a “heinous crime” and expressed its solidarity with Egypt and its armed forces. No group immediately claimed they were behind the suicide car bomb in El Arish, which was by far the deadlier of the two attacks on Friday, but it bears striking similarities to actions by Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, Egypt’s most active militant group. The group said it supports ISIL, the extremist faction that has overrun large areas in Iraq and Syria, but has not formed a formal alliance with it.

That helps explain the region-wide undercurrents at play in Sinai, and why the Egyptian government deserves support to prevail over the extremists. One reason why Mr El Sisi’s presidency has been welcomed in most of the Arab world and the international community at large is that he would be able to restore stability and allow Egypt to prosper.

A driving force in the Egyptian revolution – and in the Arab Spring generally – was the belief by average citizens that stagnating economies prevented them forging a decent living for themselves and their families. Reviving Egypt’s economy will address this legitimate concern, but that requires stability. That is particularly so for tourism, one of Egypt’s biggest foreign income earners. The southern Sinai peninsula was, along with the Nile river, the heartland of Egypt’s tourism industry but has, understandably, been devastated by the ongoing violence. We encourage Mr El Sisi to bring peace to Sinai, for the benefit of all Egyptians.

via www.thenational.ae