Islamic State’s Man in Sinai: A Post-Mortem Profile of Abu Anas al-Ansari al-Saynawi
Islamic State’s Man in Sinai: A Post-Mortem Profile of Abu Anas al-Ansari al-Saynawi
On April 2, 2017, the Egyptian military announced that 19 senior militants of the Islamic State (IS) wilayat (province) of Sinai had been killed in a series of airstrikes that took place on March 18 in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula. [1] Among the militants killed, according to an Egyptian military statement, was Salem Selmi el-Hamadeen, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Anas al-Ansari al-Saynawi, the group’s senior leader. IS later identified al-Saynawi as the founder and commander of logistics of its Egyptian affiliate. What follows is an account of al-Saynawi’s long history of jihadist militancy in Egypt and his key role in transforming Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) — the name used by the group before pledging allegiance to the Islamic State in November 2014 — into one of the most thriving of IS’ regional affiliates.
An Opaque Structure
Even before officially becoming the Sinai wilaya of Islamic State, ABM’s leadership structure had long proven to be particularly difficult to accurately identify. As with any terrorist organization, ABM has always maintained a certain degree of secrecy around its organizational structure. However, the Egyptian army’s repeated and often contradictory claims of having killed senior commanders and leaders during its long military campaign aimed at eradicating the group have only further complicated the matter.
Since 2013, the Egyptian army has announced the killing of at least four militants it identified as emirs or leaders of either ABM or the Sinai wilaya — the military often uses the two names interchangeably. This does not even include the scores of high-ranking militants reportedly killed in the various counter-terrorism campaigns that the military has been carrying out in Sinai, identifying at least five different militants as possible group leaders (Shorouknews, December 23, 2016).
In December 2013, a spokesman for the Egyptian army, Colonel Ahmed Mohammed Ali, announced the killing of Ibrahim Farag Abu Eita (a.k.a. Abu Suhaib), describing him as one of the most dangerous leaders of ABM (al-Masry al-Youm, December 9, 2013). In May 2014, Colonel Ali stated that Egyptian forces had killed Shadi al-Meneai, also identifying him as a leader of ABM (The National, May 23, 2014). However, ABM later denied the account in an official communiqué in which the group stated that Meneai was not killed by the Egyptian army and clarified that he was not the leader of the organization. [2] Indeed, several media reports emerged in 2015 indicating that Meneai was actually a Sinai wilaya military leader who had been involved in late 2015 in discussions with the Gaza-based Hamas Movement to increase cooperation (Time of Israel, December 3, 2015; Jerusalem Post, December 17, 2015). In August 2016, the Egyptian army announced the elimination of Abu Doaa al-Ansari, claiming that he was the leader of the Sinai wilaya of the Islamic State (Asharq al-Awsat, August 5, 2016). The Sinai wilaya confirmed the death of al-Doaa in the December 2016 issue of the Islamic State’s newsletter al-Naba, in which the group also revealed that Abu Hajar al-Heshami was appointed as its new wali (governor) (Daily News Egypt, December 24, 2016; Shorouknews, December 23, 2016).
In this rapid succession of leaders and commanders, the name of Abu Anas al-Ansari al-Saynawi never emerged before his killing in March 2017. Information that circulated after his death, however, indicates that al-Saynawi had actually held a key leadership role within the group even before ABM became the Sinai wilaya of Islamic State, adding a new layer of uncertainty to the previous claims made by the Egyptian army.
Abu Anas al-Saynawi’s Jihadist Past
Salem Selmi el-Hamadeen, whose real name appears to be Ahmed Zayd al-Jahina (henceforth referred to as al-Saynawi), was born in 1977 in Sheikh Zuweid, a town in northern Sinai Peninsula, a longtime hotspot of jihadist activity (Youm7.com, April 1). A member of the Abu al-Jahina local clan belonging to the al-Sawarka tribe, North Sinai’s second largest, he spent most of his life in Sheikh Zuweid, where he married and had children and worked as a teacher at the local Sanayeh school (Assakina, April 2). According to media reports, al-Saynawi’s religious views were influenced by a number of jihadist Sheikhs in Sinai, especially by the lectures of jihadist theorist Mohammed Hussein Mujahid (a.k.a. Abu Mounir) (Youm7.com, April 1).
The exposure to jihadist preaching and his personal relationship with Abu Mounir were likely the main drivers pushing al-Saynawi toward armed jihad. In 2005, he joined the Tawhid and Jihad group in Sinai, the same year in which Abu Mounir was appointed to a senior position within the group (Youm7.com, April 1; SkyNewsArabia, April 3, 2017). Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Organization of Monotheism and Jihad) was a jihadist group founded in 1997 in al-Arish, a town in northern Sinai. Until the ousting of Hosni Mubarak as Egypt’s president in 2011, al-Arish dominated the Egyptian jihadist scene. Another source claimed that thanks to his abilities, al-Saynawi was quickly appointed as the second in command of the organization, with his main responsibilities being the transfer of militants from Gaza into Sinai and the training of suicide bombers (Assakina.com, April 2).
Later in 2005, al-Saynawi was arrested by the Egyptian army in Sinai, likely in one of the several roundups the Egyptian authorities carried out in the aftermath of the Taba and Shark el-Sheikh bombings — which took place in 2004 and 2005 respectively — resulting in the detention of thousands of people (News24, July 24, 2005). Despite his senior position within the group, al-Saynawi’s name did not hit the headlines at that time.
While in prison, al-Saynawi likely met several of the detained Egyptian jihadists, and they together agreed to found a jihadist organization dedicated to re-establishing a solid jihadist presence in the country. According to one source, al-Saynawi’s proposal was to establish a group encompassing all militant cells operational in the Sinai Peninsula. This group would later will become known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem or Supporters of the Holy House) (Youm7.com, April 1; al-Ghald.tv, April 2,).
On January 30, 2011, as the popular revolt against Mubarak was gathering pace, al-Saynawi was among the thousands of detainees who managed to escape from the Wadi el-Natrun prison complex in Beheira Governorate, north of Cairo (Egypt Independent, March 3, 2011; Youm7.com, April 1). Once out of prison, al-Saynawi attempted to leave Egypt, but was arrested again and put in prison for three weeks before being released (al-Naba, April 2).
Islamic State’s Man in Sinai
Once back in Sinai, al-Saynawi put into practice the ideas he had developed in prison, establishing ABM with other former members of the Tawhid and Jihad group. According to one source, al-Saynawi continued to use the relationships he had forged with Gaza-based militants before his arrest, and he was appointed to lead the armed training committee of ABM (Youm7.com, April 1; al-Naba, April 2). Another source indicates that, given his high-ranking position within the group, Egyptian security forces put up a reward of 3 million Egyptian pounds for information leading to his capture (Assakina.com, April 2). The bounty on his head was probably one of the reasons why, according to the same source, al-Saynawi constantly traveled surrounded by a group of personal bodyguards led by his brother, Abdul Hadi Zayd (Youm7.com, April 1; Assakina.com, April 2).
Some of these accounts are included in Issue 74 of the al-Naba newsletter that IS released on March 30, which features a long article confirming the killing of al-Saynawi and eulogizing him. [3] The al-Naba article confirmed al-Saynawi’s previous militant experience with Tawhid and Jihad and ABM, recalling his time in prison and the strong influence he had on his jihadist comrades. The article, however, also revealed that al-Saynawi was the key figure within ABM to propose and support the idea of pledging allegiance to IS, — the pledge was announced in June 2014 — and it portrayed him as the founder of the Sinai wilaya of Islamic State. Furthermore, security sources quoted in local media indicate that the IS leadership appointed al-Saynawi as the group’s leader in Sinai and Gaza because of his efforts to break the ABM allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in favor of IS emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Assakina.com, April 2).
Conclusions
The claim that Abu Anas al-Saynawi was until his death the wali of the Sinai wilaya contradicts IS’ December 2016 announcement that identified Abu Hajar al-Heshami as the group’s actual leader. Some Egyptian commentators have indeed called into question this assertion, indicating that much of the information about al-Saynawi’s profile has actually emerged after IS published the al-Naba newsletter. Further, these commentators stress this incongruence as evidence that the Egyptian security forces did not know much about al-Saynawi and the group’s leadership, simply using his killing as a propaganda tool to cover up their failure in containing the jihadist insurgency in Sinai (Arabi21, April 3). Notwithstanding the veracity of this specific piece of information, there is no doubt that Abu Anas al-Saynawi was a key leader of Sinai wilaya, one of the major sponsors of the pledge to al-Baghdadi and a crucial figure of the jihadism current in Sinai, having supervised the transformation of various jihadist entities into the Sinai wilaya of Islamic State.
Unlike the killing of group’s previous figure, his elimination is also likely to have a significant impact on the organization’s future trajectory. Firstly, Abu Anas al-Saynawi was a major player for IS in Sinai, and his removal from the local scene may somehow weaken in the long term the link between the group and its parent organization, especially at a moment in which Islamic State is going through a gradual but constant territorial decline in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Moreover, al-Saynawi’s tribal background means that he had strong connections with the local tribal milieu, quite a strong asset as the group is currently engulfed in a ferocious feud with Sinai tribes targeted by the group because of their perceived cooperation with the Egyptian army against it. As such, even without realizing his importance beforehand, the Egyptian army’s elimination of Abu Anas al-Saynawi may have inflicted a serious blow to the Sinai wilaya.
NOTES
[2] https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/05/ansar_jerusalem_denies_death_o.php
