Security in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula

Weapons seized after attack

In the wake of today's co-ordinated attacks on Egyptian security forces in NE Sinai this text seems worth re-reading: Zachary Laub, 'Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Security' Council for Foreign Relations December 12, 2013)

Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, envisioned by the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli treaty as a buffer zone to build trust and ensure peace, has become a haven for transnational crime and Islamist militancy. Poverty and political alienation among the region's native Bedouins, combined with political dislocations since former president Hosni Mubarak's government was toppled in 2011, have allowed nonstate armed groups to thrive, posing new threats to global trade and the peace on the Egypt-Israel border.

Although antiquities are not mentioned (and smuggling them to the Gaza strip might not be very helpful to the middlemen, the movement of small, easily portable and sometimes high value items like these is one form of transnational crime which needs bearing in mind in any such discussion.