Egypt Security Sector Report
This week’s dispatch includes reports on Egyptian diplomacy in Palestine, Syria, Libya, and Sudan, as well as foreign military cooperation, army propaganda, policing women, prison deaths, capital punishment, and security crackdowns.
📁 New Book: Egypt’s New Authoritarian Republic
I contributed a chapter on the role of the police in Egypt’s counterrevolution. The book will be published in July 2025. An Arabic edition will also be available soon.
📁 Palestine, Syria
The detention of six Alexandrian activists has been renewed Monday for 45 days—including prominent textile trade unionist Shady Mohamed—who are accused of terror charges for raising in April 2024 a banner in Smouha in support of Gaza and political detainees.
At the time of writing, around 129 Egyptians, including two children, remain in prison for taking part in peaceful solidarity actions with the Palestinians.Ahmed al-Mansour, an Egyptian insurgent in Syria who had been posting videos to social media criticizing Sisi and calling for a new revolution in Egypt, was arrested by the Syrian authorities Tuesday. The GIS-run media outlets have been lashing out against him and brought his father in a public video to disown him. Egyptian security sources told Reuters
that while they did not directly request the arrest, Cairo had expressed its anger at the re-emergence of militant dissidents in Syria via intelligence contacts with third-party countries.
Cairo has been in a wait-and-see mode since the fall of Bashar al-Assad but has already sent three demands to Damascus, according to sources who spoke to al-Ahram. The new Syrian government must refrain from hosting anyone who might be perceived in Egypt as hostile to the Egyptian regime, promoting Islamist groups in any way, or supporting militant groups in the region, including Hamas in Gaza.
Due to the Houthis’ attacks in solidarity with Gaza, “The Suez Canal continues to suffer particularly with transit down around 70%,” said Arsenio Dominguez, secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, Tuesday. “The cost of goods and trade is expected to go up 0.6% this year.”
Egypt, Qatar, and the US issued a joint statement Wednesday on the deal for prisoner exchange and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. In a press conference, Qatari PM Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said, “A joint team from the three countries... will monitor the implementation of the agreement, and everything is being agreed upon, and will be in place, hopefully, on the day of execution (of the ceasefire Sunday).”
Egyptian security sources told al-Ahram that coordination is underway to open the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza to allow the entry of international aid.
Hamas thanked Egypt and Qatar for their efforts in reaching the ceasefire agreement.
Hospitals in N. Sinai are on alert, gearing up to receive injured Palestinians as soon as the crossing opens.Sisi traveled to the UAE Thursday to meet with his Emirati sponsor, MBZ, to discuss “restoring regional stability.”
FM Badr Abdelatty declined to discuss Hamas’ military capabilities, in an interview with AP on Thursday, but indicated that it will not govern Gaza after the war. He stated that Abu Mazen’s Palestinian Authority is the appropriate entity to lead postwar Gaza.
Two of the world's top shipping companies, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, said Thursday they did not see an immediate return to the Red Sea. Commercial shipping will resume normal transits through the Suez Canal in late February at the earliest, assuming all conditions are met, under the most optimistic analyst prediction made following the ceasefire agreement.
The Houthis’ leader said Thursday his group would monitor the implementation of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and continue its attacks on vessels or Israel if the agreement is breached. This statement was followed by an email sent to shippers and others yesterday, where the Houthis signaled they would limit their attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships.
Source: Reuters. The EU is prepared to redeploy a monitoring mission to the Rafah Crossing, the bloc’s top diplomat said Friday.
Abdelatty said Saturday that the ceasefire deal provides “the entry of 600 trucks per day to the Strip, including 50 trucks of fuel.”
Israeli, Palestinian, Qatari, and US delegations arrived in Cairo Saturday to examine the implementation of the ceasefire deal designed to go into effect the following morning.
More than 630 trucks with humanitarian aid entered Gaza yesterday, according to the UN.
Egyptian firms are poised to profit from the postwar Gaza reconstruction efforts.
Egypt’s imports of Israeli gas rose 18% to a record of just under 1 billion cubic feet per day in 2024.
Ibrahim al-Orjani’s Hala Travel company, which the security services used to extort money out of Gazans desperate to flee into Egypt, has become a business model, replicated with other nationalities.
The security clearance process has become a booming business, with pricing fluctuating based on regional developments. For instance, the cost reached $3,300 for Sudanese nationals after the war and $2,300 for Syrians following the fall of al-Assad, in addition to hundreds of dollars for Yemenis and other nationalities. These funds are funneled into a network of foreign and Egyptian intermediaries and Egyptian travel agencies, which, through their connections, can monopolize the issuance of security permits from the different security agencies.
