Egypt's new president orders first air strike on Sinai for 40 years

Egypt's president sacked his intelligence chief and ordered the first air strike in the Sinai Peninsula for almost 40 years yesterday (Wednesday) as he responded to the killing of 16 soldiers in the increasingly lawless region.

The retaliation for the deaths of the troops — who were killed by Islamist gunmen — came with an Egyptian air raid on a Bedouin settlement in Sinai that left about 20 dead.

President Mohammed Morsi, the newly elected leader of Egypt, also purged his senior security officials, announcing the "retirement" of General Murad Mowafi, the head of intelligence and one of the most powerful figures in the country.

General Mowafi, who was appointed in the last days of Hosni Mubarak's regime, had spent 10 years preparing for this post during his time as deputy intelligence chief. The president also dismissed Abdul Wahab Mabruk, the governor of North Sinai where the raid on the military base took place on Sunday. In addition, Morsi deployed thousands more troops and police near the Israeli border.

Under the terms of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, signed in 1979, the Sinai is a "demilitarised zone". The reinforcements were deployed by agreement with Israel.

Relations between the two neighbours have been strained by the election of a new government in Cairo dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Experts said the show of might so close to the Israeli border showed how security co-operation was still taking place. General Amos Gilad, the head of the political-military bureau at the Israeli defence ministry, said: "What we see in Egypt is a strong fury, a determination of the regime and the army to impose order in Sinai because that is their responsibility."

Egypt receives $1.3 billion (£830 million) of American aid every year, conditional on good relations with Israel. Thousands of European tourists flock to the Red Sea resorts in Sinai. Efraim Inbar, a security and military expert at Bar-Ilan University, said Israel and Egypt shared a common interest in securing the region, hence Israel had not objected to the reinforcements.

Omar Ashour, an Egyptian expert on jihadism, said the army was capable of defeating Islamist movements in Sinai, but stressed how the situation was complicated by decades of marginalisation of the region's Bedouin communities.

"What the Egyptian army did is a reaction, a revenge attack, not a planned security operation," he added. "If the Egyptians can do the job, it's in the interest of Israel to give this permission."

But Morsi's civilian government has tense relations with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the committee of generals that took control of Egypt after Mubarak's downfall last year. This rivalry complicates the security response to unrest in Sinai and the wider issue of relations with Israel.

Both Morsi and SCAF are vying for the support of Egypt's masses. After the attack on the army outpost on Sunday, the Muslim Brotherhood released a statement blaming Mossad, Israel's external intelligence agency.

This, said Ashour, was not a genuine claim against Israel, but an attempt to prevent SCAF and the army from winning credit with a tough response.