Islamist Wave 2014 - News & Discussion

Erdogan Purges Regime of Former Ally's Agents

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is gaining the upper hand in Turkey’s political feud by purging a police force and judiciary that helped him become the country’s most powerful leader in decades, analysts and police experts say.

Prosecutors driving the corruption probe that shook the government when it was made public in December have been shunted off the case, and thousands of police officers reassigned. Erdogan accuses them of taking orders from his former ally, U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose influence he has vowed to root out. In a sign that the plan is working, efforts by the graft investigators to widen their net have been blocked.
By dislodging the secular army as the dominant force, the alliance between Erdogan and Gulen reshaped Turkey . Now, the scale of the premier’s mobilization against the preacher threatens to do the same. In addition to the firings, his government has slapped new controls on the Internet, where leaks from the investigation were surfacing, and strengthened its grip on courts. The European Union and Turkish business groups are among those warning of the risks.

“Erdogan is aiming to pack the state with loyalists,” said Anthony Skinner, head of analysis at Maplecroft, a research company based in Bath, England . While he’s ahead in the fight against Gulen, the “ongoing drive to flush out dissent will continue to have serious repercussions for the rule of law.”
‘Unanticipated Erosion’

The EU has urged Erdogan to ease curbs on free speech and let judges operate independently, to revive Turkey’s membership bid. Standard & Poor’s cited “an unanticipated erosion of institutional checks and balances and governance standards,” in cutting its outlook on Turkey’s credit rating on Feb. 7 to negative from stable.

Turkey’s currency, bonds and stocks were among the world’s worst performers in the month after the corruption allegations surfaced with the detention of businessmen, officials and the sons of three cabinet members on Dec. 17.

Erdogan responded by removing ministers who were implicated in the probe, and launching a counter-offensive. A second wave of arrests was foiled when officers loyal to the government refused to carry out orders from the prosecutors, who were subsequently taken off the case.

The police have been subjected to the biggest overhaul. The government is seeking to diminish Gulen’s influence in key units, including intelligence, organized crime and anti-terrorism, according to a former senior official in those units. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.
‘Somewhere Else’

Interior Minister Efkan Ala told Kanal 7 television on Feb. 21 that 5,000 policemen have been reassigned, saying only 1,000 were related to the graft probe. He said two senior police officials involved in bugging Erdogan’s office had fled to an unspecified country, and Turkey would seek their extradition.

Interior Ministry officials declined to respond to questions about the dismissals and the extent of Gulen’s influence within the police, saying they can’t discuss administrative decisions.

“This country’s police, prosecutors and judges are receiving orders from somewhere else,” Erdogan said Feb. 15. “Wherever they are hiding in, we will find, expose and hold this parallel structure accountable in front of the nation.”
‘Upper Hand’

The head of the country’s biggest business group warned last month that the power struggle will undermine the economy. The government’s efforts to strengthen its grip on key institutions of the state are “disturbing,” Muharrem Yilmaz said. “It’s not possible to attract foreign investment to a country where the rule of law is ignored” and “the judicial mechanism is not working in line with EU norms.”

Erdogan responded by accusing Yilmaz of betraying his country.

An independent adviser to the police, who also asked not to be identified, said thousands more officers in the 260,000-strong police force are likely to be reassigned by the end of the summer. He tapped his mobile phone to show a list of alleged Gulenist officers, and said he had shared that information with pro-government police inspectors.

The police purge has “inhibited the ability of Gulenists to engage in corruption probes and arrests,” Skinner said. “Erdogan has the upper hand at the moment.”
Exam Questions

Erdogan has expanded the battle to the Internet. On Feb. 11 he accused parts of the police and judiciary of undermining his government with illegal wiretapping records leaked on the Internet. Vowing to end online “bullying,” he has pushed through legislation that allows authorities to block content deemed to be violating personal privacy without a court order.

A recording of what sounds like Erdogan and his son Bilal discussing ways to conceal funds from the investigation was posted on YouTube yesterday. The tape is an “unethical” montage, the premier’s office said in a statement on its website, vowing legal action.

Gulen’s followers increased their sway in the police after Erdogan’s party came to power in 2002. Students in Gulen-linked schools would be given advance knowledge of the questions in police college exams, according to the senior police official. Some cadets were sent to universities in the U.S. to help them advance, while others kept a low profile until they were appointed to key posts, he said.

The affiliations of officers are widely known, especially in small units, and secular and nationalist officers previously pushed aside by Gulenists are now making a comeback, he said.
Fist Fight

Erdogan also replaced some members of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, which makes judicial appointments. Lawmakers on Feb. 14 voted to hand control of the board to Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, ignoring objections by the opposition Republican People’s Party , which escalated into a fist fight on the floor of the chamber.

A month earlier, when the purge was in its early stages, the EU expressed reservations. “These developments could weaken investigations in progress and the capacity of the legal system and the police to conduct independent investigations,” European Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly said on Jan. 8, calling on Turkey to respect EU entry criteria including the rule of law.

The comments reflect the shift in EU concerns about Turkey since it was officially accepted as a membership candidate in 1999. High on the EU’s to-do list at that time was reducing the political influence of the army and placing it under civilian control. Erdogan, with an assist from Gulen, has achieved that - - only to face questions from Brussels about whether his government now dominates too many areas of Turkish life.
‘Seriously Collapsed’

“The police and judiciary mechanisms have seriously collapsed,” said Gokhan Bacik, a political scientist at Ipek University in Ankara. Erdogan’s crackdown brings into question “not only the legitimacy of such dismissals but also the supremacy of the rule of law in the country.”

Erdogan said on Jan. 29 that he also plans to prevent prosecutors from issuing arrest orders without approval of government-appointed governors.

“The government has moved to put the police and judiciary under its control” to block the graft probe, said Hasan Oren, a lawmaker from the Republican People’s Party.

Erdogan, who faces three elections in the next two years, has accused the Gulen movement of seeking to weaken his Justice and Development Party before those votes. The first test of that will be during local elections on March 30.

“If the people make us the number one party, it means this government is honest,” Erdogan said on Feb. 4.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...otal_matches":0,"is_search":false,"items":[]}

French soldiers are fighting AQ in Azawad (North Mali), As Shabaab has recently bombed Mogadishu, Boko Haraam has been working hard in Northern Nigeria and Northern Cameroon. There's a Jihad across Africa, including in Congo and the Central African Republic.

"An U.N.-backed offensive by Democratic Republic of Congo troops has destroyed the bases of an Ugandan Islamist group in the country's east and should crush the rebels in the next few days,
an army spokesman said on Monday.

The Congolese army has been fighting the ADF-NALU militia since December following rebel attacks against civilians in the eastern province of North Kivu.

"We're progressing well in the operations against ADF-NALU. In a few days we will finish with them," army spokesman Colonel Olivier Hamuli said in the town of Beni in North Kivu.

"We have destroyed all of the bases which were supporting their supply lines. They're now badly positioned and in a few days we will overcome them."

The army's advance followed stepped up support from U.N. forces, with U.N. attack helicopters bombarding ADF-NALU positions on Saturday.

ADF-NALU is an alliance of groups opposed to the Ugandan government that has operated from bases in eastern Congo since being forced out of Uganda in the mid-2000s.

It has been blamed for a spate of kidnappings and attacks over the last year, culminating in a Christmas Day assault near Beni that killed about 40 civilians. It is believed to number up to 1,400 fighters.

Martin Kobler, the head of the U.N. mission in Congo (MONUSCO), called on the rebels to surrender.

"I urge the last fighters to put down their weapons immediately and surrender to MONUSCO camps," he said in a statement.

If ADF-NALU were to be defeated, it would be the second major victory for Congo's army in less than a year after it routed the M23 rebel group in November.

At the height of its powers in late 2012, M23 seized Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, and posed the most serious threat to President Joseph Kabila's 13 years in power.

That prompted the formation of an Intervention Brigade of U.N. troops with a mandate to hunt down and neutralize armed groups in Congo's lawless east, home to dozens of rebel factions and militias."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/03/us-congo-democratic-rebels-idUSBREA221KN20140303



"UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Most Muslims have been driven out of the western half of conflict-torn Central African Republic, where thousands of civilians risk of being killed "right before our eyes," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Thursday.

The bleak warning came as the country's foreign minister pleaded with the U.N. Security Council to urgently approve a U.N. peacekeeping force to stop the killing.

Widespread violence in the former French colony has claimed thousands of lives since Seleka, a coalition of mostly Muslim northern rebels, seized power a year ago. Attacks intensified in
December when "anti-Balaka" militias drawn from the majority Christian population stepped up reprisals on Muslims.

"Since early December we have effectively witnessed a 'cleansing' of the majority of the Muslim population in western CAR," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told a meeting of the 15-nation U.N. Security Council on the crisis in the impoverished and landlocked country.

"Tens of thousands of them (Muslims) have left the country, the second refugee outflow of the current crisis, and most of those remaining are under permanent threat," he said.

The council is considering a U.N. proposal for a nearly 12,000-strong peacekeeping force to stop the country from sliding toward what a top U.N. rights official called "ethnic-religious cleansing." If approved, the U.N. force would likely not be operational before late summer.
http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-says-west-central-african-republic-cleansed-191649689.html
"Just last week, there were about 15,000 people trapped in 18 locations in western CAR, surrounded by anti-Balaka elements and at very high risk of attack," Guterres said.

"International forces are present in some of these sites, but if more security is not made available immediately, many of these civilians risk being killed right before our eyes."

Guterres said that until last year CAR "was largely a stranger to religious conflict." But the worsening bloodshed has enabled armed groups to use religion as a pretext for violence.

"The demon of religious cleansing must be stopped - now," he said. Guterres' spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said western CAR was roughly half the country.

'SURGE' OF PEACEKEEPERS NEEDED

Central African Republic's Foreign Minister Toussaint Kongo-Doudou told the council that his country's survival depended on the urgent deployment of a U.N. force. U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous also spoke about the dire need for U.N. troops.

"The state has virtually no capacity to manage the massive array of threats it is facing," Ladsous said. "There is no national army and the remnants of the police and gendarmerie lack the basic equipment and means to exercise their duties, while state administration is largely absent."

The European Union is already deploying 1,000 soldiers to join 6,000 African and 2,000 French troops. Those forces have so far not been able to halt the killings and restore stability.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told the council that there are more than 650,000 people internally displaced in CAR due to the conflict, over 232,000 in the capital Bangui alone. Nearly 300,000 people have fled to neighboring countries.

"The violence has led to the total breakdown of the state, locally and nationally," she said.

Ladsous said he hoped to include as many of the African contingents as possible in a future U.N. force. U.N. officials have told Reuters on condition of anonymity that few of the African contingents are trained and equipped to U.N. standards.

Ladsous said the initial phase of a peacekeeping operation would have to focus on helping to establish security.

"This will require an initial surge of military personnel and corresponding military enablers," he said. "Alongside this initial military surge, essential civilian capacities will be deployed, phased in gradually as the situation stabilizes."

Ladsous said it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The force will need to be approved by the Security Council. Diplomats said France will submit within the next few weeks a draft resolution to authorize a peacekeeping force in line with U.N. recommendations.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud said Paris supports Ladsous' call for some 10,000 troops and 1,820 police but he predicted a "very difficult negotiation" on the resolution. Diplomats say the United States and Britain are especially concerned about costs due to national requirements for legislative approval.

But U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power voiced support for U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's call for a U.N. force in CAR. "We are prepared to work closely with partners starting immediately to move forward in developing a peacekeeping operation that can meet the challenges in the Central African Republic," she said."

Han Chinese in Xinjiang

His earliest memory about Xinjiang was a knife he found under his father's pillow when he was little. It was the size of a 12-inch laptop. No sheath. He was stunned and cried immediately.

The adults soon came and calmed him down. They told him "it is a normal thing because some Uyghur people might come to steal things and kill people."

It was way back in the 1970s when a Xinjiang resident, who only identified himself as Chen, was brought to meet his father in Kashi, or Kashgar, in southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which is now home to about 700,000 people, over 80 percent of whom are Muslim Uyghur.

Chen's impression of Xinjiang was forever linked with that knife. But as he grew up with Uyghur kids, he found that people from all ethnic groups actually got along quite well.

"We fought and then we made up. No one made a big deal. We all got used to it," he said.

China's far west Xinjiang, the biggest administrative region by land area, is home to 22 million people, up to 46 percent of whom are Muslim Uyghur, followed by 39 percent Han and 7 percent Kazakh. It is also the most ethnically troubled area as violence was already on the rise in the 1990s.

Life there has changed. Armed police patrol the streets; anxiety and rumors quickly spread; the atmosphere is tense. The idea of leaving Xinjiang has started bubbling up in the minds of some Han people.

Chen left Xinjiang for school in the 1990s. Every time he went back to Kashi he noticed changes: people are getting richer. The city is getting dirtier. His father moved from the northern part of the city to the southern part where most of the Han people live.

"Now the older generation tell you they still fight, but they don't make up like they used to, something has changed, something dark," he said.

The last time Chen visited Kashi was in 2000 when all of his Han relatives moved out of Xinjiang.

To stay or go? That question seems hard to answer for many Han.

Strained relations
Xinjiang has been a multi-ethnic region since ancient times. The Han population saw an increase after the establishment of the State-run Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in 1954 in the region, a move to consolidate border defense and accelerate local economic development.

The number of Han jumped from 7 percent to over 40 percent in late 1970s. It slightly declined when the family planning policy was introduced for Han in the 1980s. Han couples were only allowed to have one child while ethnic families were allowed to give birth to two or more. In recent years it has stood at around 40 percent.

Most Han inhabit live in the northern part of Xinjiang where the natural conditions are better while native Uyghurs stay in the southern part where most of them make their living via agriculture.

Over the years, Xinjiang's economic development has heavily relied on Han migrants, which makes ethnic minorities feel disadvantaged and escalates inter-ethnic tensions. From some Uyghurs' point of view, they see Han taking over their abundant oil and gas reserves; Han complain that government policies favor ethnic minorities in terms of family planning, college admissions and job recruitment.

"When I was little, I heard Uyghur kids yelling at me saying 'get out of Xinjiang.' I told the adults but they just laughed," Chen said.

It wasn't long before people both inside and outside of Xinjiang began to take it seriously. In 2009, a riot that killed over 200 people in the capital Urumqi put this remote region in international headlines.

The riots ended up dividing the capital into two parts. In fear of being attacked, many Han sold their houses and moved out from southern part of the city which is dominated by Uyghurs, and is where the riots happened.

Moreover, Han are rarely seen walking alone on the streets in the southern part of the city. Local taxi drivers suggest Han tourists avoid shopping at the bazaar for their own safety.

"There is nothing the local government can do as it is people's freedom to live wherever they want," Pan Zhiping, director of the Institute of Central Asia at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Pan suggests that the local government should create jobs for the Han in the southern part of the city to lure them to move in, a move to follow Singapore's model of different ethnic minorities living together.

Rift widening?
However, the gap between Han and Uyghurs appears to be widening, with more and more instances of inter-ethnic violence occurring. The older generation of migrants are more likely to stay as they feel at home in Xinjiang, but younger people prefer to seek opportunities outside of the region.

Wang Jianguo, a teacher in Urumqi, who moved to Xinjiang from the northern part of the country in 1994, has been living away from his wife and son for six years. His 15-year-old son is now attending high school in Beijing where he visits him a few times a year.

"To be honest, when he grows up, I won't advise him to come back," Wang told the Global Times.

Back in the 1990s, students whose hukou , or household registration, was in Xinjiang needed a permit from local education bureau to work outside of the area. But now many who attend school in other provinces would rather not go home.

In 2013 alone, the number of riots was horrifying. In June, a total of 24 people were killed during a violent terrorist attack in a remote town in Turpan Prefecture, followed by 11 assailants who were shot dead in Bachu, Kashi after they killed two police officers in November, and one month later, another 14 terrorists were killed as police busted an organized terrorist attack in Shufu, Kashi.

"The restless situation has become the main concern stopping young people from going home," Wang said.

Another Han resident who refused to be named told the Global Times that in rural villages there are only elderly Han left. Originally from Shihezi, in the northern part of Xinjiang, he said he has seen a rapid increase in the population of Uyghur people in his village as they enjoy favorable policies in terms of family planning, while at least half of the Han population has moved out.

"I can't imagine what my village will look like in 30 years, I am not sure if I will want to go back then," he said.

However, the older generations have more important reasons to stay. "Scaring millions of people out from their hometown via terror attacks? That is just the delusional thinking of some Eastern Turkistan terrorists," remarked Zhang Tuizong, a second generation Han migrant.

Originally from Guangdong Province, Zhang was born in Changji city of northern Xinjiang. His parents left home for Xinjiang in their 20s. He went to school outside Xinjiang but all his relatives are still living there.

"Home is where I was born, I am a Xinjianger," he said. "The problem in Xinjiang is how to get along with other ethnic minorities, leaving Xinjiang won't solve the problem."

Discrimination concerns
Ironically, when it comes to the term "Xinjianger", many people outside the region have this misunderstanding that there are only Uyghur people in Xinjiang. In recent years, cases involving Uyghur street children in other regions - often the victims of human trafficking - involved in pickpocketing have left a bad impression.

Many Han people from Xinjiang said they have been treated like "second class" citizens outside Xinjiang. Some of them have experienced rejection from hotels, others find they are discriminated against when applying for jobs.

Another attack that happened earlier this month, when a group of knife-wielding Uyghurs stabbed 29 people to death at the railway station in Kunming, again put this restless region under a spotlight.

"The Kunming attack has triggered another round of discrimination against people from Xinjiang," Zhang Lijuan, a professor of Marxism at Xinjiang Normal University, told the Global Times. "We know how they feel because we have been through the same riots, but they can't live in denial."

Posts even circulated on the Internet saying that if anyone spots people from Xinjiang around their neighborhood they should call the police.

To correct the image of Han in Xinjiang, the latest issue of Vista Magazine explored the theme of "the Xinjiang people around us" by interviewing well-known celebrities who are originally from Xinjiang.

Zhang said "Xinjiangers" should have more confidence. "We should have faith in this land; all the people together in Xinjiang will make it a safer and more comfortable home."

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/847986.shtml#.UyLeV_ldWgw

A map of the activities in Mali.

Doku Umarov has died, and his replacement has been announced.



As the Islamic Caucasus Emirate announced the death of its founder and first emir, Doku Umarov, the group also named his successor, Ali Abu Muhammad al Dagestani.
Today, Kavkaz Center tweeted that Ali Abu Muhammad al Dagestani, the "Caucasus Emirate's Sharia Judge," was "elected as new CE Emir by leaders of CE provinces." Kavkaz Center also released a video of of Ali Abu Muhammad, in which he praised Umarov and said he has a monumental task in leading the Islamic Caucasus Emirate [video is above].
Ali Abu Muhammad was appointed by Umarov as the group's qadi, or senior judge, in October 2010. He assumed the role as the Islamic Caucasus Emirate's qadi after his predecessor, Sayfullah, was killed by Russian forces in August 2010.
At the time of his appointment as qadi, Ali Abu Muhammad said he was not qualified to serve but must do so given the situation in the Caucasus:

Found this image posted by an ISIS member/enthusiast... seems like at best it'd be in bad taste, at worst it'd be blasphemous.

Egyptian militants have intensified violence ahead of a presidential election to pick a replacement for jailed president Mohamed Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood party has called the ouster "a murderous military coup d'etat."

Militants who seek an Egypt under strict Islamic law are saying the ouster of Morsi and arrests of his leading party members prove that only violence will achieve their aim, analysts said.

"The attacks are increasing in frequency, in intensity and in geographic spread," said Issandr El Amrani, North Africa director for the International Crisis Group, in Cairo.

"We are looking at a spreading armed campaign against the government."

In January, a truck full of explosives was driven to the gate of the police headquarters in Cairo, killing four people and wounding dozens more. Three other bomb attacks at police stations and a movie theater left two more dead.

In February, four people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a tourist bus near Egypt's border with Israel in the Sinai peninsula. Gunmen also killed a police officer who had been a guard for a judge presiding over a case against Morsi. A bomb exploded on a bridge in Giza, apparently targeting security forces guarding the Israeli embassy.

On Saturday, gunmen shot and killed six Egyptian soldiers at an army checkpoint north of Cairo two days after gunmen opened fire on an army bus in Cairo.

Outside the capital, terrorists have been concentrating most major attacks in the northern Sinai, an arid and mountainous land in eastern Egypt on the border with Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

"You might be able to call it an insurgency in parts of Sinai," El Amrani said. "In the rest of the country, it's not an insurgency as much as terrorist activity or activity by armed groups."
"But the pattern is that it is growing," he said.

Violence has spread since Egyptian authorities crushed sit-ins organized by backers of Morsi, who was ousted in July by the Egyptian army one year after his election. The army arrested Morsi following days of massive protests against his rule, which his detractors said was veering into dictatorship and religious law.

The public will vote on a replacement as early as April, but candidates deemed too radical or tied too closely to Morsi are barred. Meanwhile, shootings and assaults against mostly military and police are happening almost daily.

The deadliest and dominant jihadist group here is Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, or Supporters of Jerusalem – an al-Qaeda-inspired group that is comprised predominantly of Egyptians, analysts said.

The Sinai-based group has claimed responsibility for most major attacks against Egypt and Israel since its formation three years ago, including the January bomb blasts, and a recent attack that brought down an Egyptian military helicopter as well as an attempt to assassinate the Interior minister.

It also took credit for the bomb that blew up a tourist bus in which 32 South Korean tourists were riding after visiting the ancient Greek Orthodox St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai. The attack was seen as an attempt to frighten away tourists, an important source of revenue for the Egypt government.

David Barnett, a research associate at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., described Egypt's violence as an insurgency in its infancy.

"The jihadist groups weren't necessarily ready to pounce as soon as Morsi was overthrown," Barnett said. "No one foresaw that. So they are, to a certain extent, still playing catch-up to the whole situation."

The violence has yet to reach the lethal levels Egypt withstood in the 1990s during the reign of Hosni Mubarak, when jihadists targeted government figures, police, tourists and civilians, killing dozens of people.

"It's possible that we could see the same, and it's not inconceivable it could be worse," said Anthony Skinner, director of Maplecroft, a global risk consultancy in the United Kingdom.

Many criminals, including militant Islamists incarcerated under Mubarak, gravitated to the Sinai when they were released after his ouster, Skinner said. Security and border control has been weaker in the North Sinai, and militants there have greater access to arms from countries such as Libya, where an uprising unlocked weapons arsenals that had been closed off to militants.

Militant Islamists are also using the ouster of Morsi and the subsequent crackdown on his supporters to fuel their ranks, Skinner said.

"The situation is more volatile and more difficult to control" than in the 1990s, he said.

Complaining about the West's indifference to Morsi's ouster, the Muslim Brotherhood said on its English-language website that Europe has overlooked that "a murderous military coup d'etat was executed by the generals in Egypt. ... It is an evidently illegitimate coup by all constitutional, humanitarian, legal and democratic standards."

Egypt's new Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab, who was appointed by army-backed President Adly Mansour, said Egypt is taking steps to tamp down the militant violence.

"We will work together to restore security and safety to Egypt and crush terrorism in all corners of the country," he said after his appointment, according to Reuters.

Egyptian security forces have destroyed smuggling tunnels that run under the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas, a terrorist entity that originated as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian army says it has killed dozens of suspected militants, arrested hundreds more and destroyed suspected militant hideouts as well as arms depots, local news media reported. The truth of the claims is difficult to confirm.

The military says it could do a much better job cracking down on the terrorists if it had more help from the United States.

John Edwin Mroz, president and CEO of EastWest Institute, an international organization that focuses on resolving conflict, said Egyptian authorities don't understand why Washington is withholding military assistance that could boost security efforts.

Regaining control of the northern Sinai where militant activity abounds may depend on whether Egypt gets 11 Apache helicopters that are being withheld because President Obama ordered a freeze on U.S. military aid to Egypt after Morsi's ouster, Mroz said.

"They just don't have the manpower otherwise to do it because of the terrain – the size and nature of the terrain," said Mroz, who recently met with Egyptian leaders in the ministries of defense and foreign affairs.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/19/egypt-security/6182107/