Wanderlust

Tag: War Conflict

  • Red Cross worker killed in Yemen highlights danger in world’s worst humanitarian crisis: U.N.

    A Red Cross employee was shot and killed in the Taiz Governorate in Yemen last week, which international organizations are condemning as a targeted killing on a humanitarian aid worker.

    A Red Cross employee was shot and killed in the Taiz Governorate in Yemen last week, which international organizations are condemning as a targeted killing on a humanitarian aid worker.

    Hanna Lahoud, a Lebanese national, was gunned down by unknown assailants while traveling as a member and with other workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

    He was traveling for a detention visit to check conditions and well-being of prisoners when he was attacked, the ICRCsaid in a statement. Lahoud was taken to the hospital where he died of his injuries. Other colleagues in the car were unharmed.

    “We condemn this brutal and apparently deliberate attack on a dedicated humanitarian worker,” Robert Mardini, the ICRC’s Middle East director, said in a statement.

    “We are all in shock. Hanna was a young man full of life and was widely known and liked. Nothing can justify Hanna’s murder and we are in deep mourning for our dear friend and colleague. Our hearts and thoughts are with Hanna’s loved ones and friends.”

    Lahoud had worked for the ICRC for about eight years, the organization said. Before joining the ICRC he was a first aid volunteer and staff with the Lebanese Red Cross.

    Ralph El Have, a spokesman for the ICRC, told the BBC that not all Red Cross vehicles are marked but that “everyone knows who we are.”

    “… Attacks on humanitarian workers, whether they are intended towards humanitarian workers or whether they are just intended against any civilian or any person who happens to be at the wrong place or the wrong time, they continue to happen in war-torn countries,” he told the radio service.

    Mr. El Have described Taiz as one of the most devastated cities and provinces in Yemen, with active fighting between different parties and individuals.

    “Proliferation of arms has unfortunately come to an extent you don’t know who is an armed man or an armed person part of an organized group,” he said.

    The ICRC goes to great lengths to maintain its neutrality in conflict zones, dismissing outright the idea of arming their staff or providing armed security. They’ll instead remove their aid workers for a time if they can’t guarantee their safety.

    On Sunday, a spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General issued a statement condemning the killing and emphasized that all parties to the conflict protect aid workers servicing an estimated 22 million people in the war-torn country.

    Yemen is in the third year of a brutal civil war between Iranian-backed Houthi rebel extremists in the north of the country, against government forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. in the South.

    The conflict has plunged the Middle East’s poorest country into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with three-quarters of the population needing aid and protection, according to the U.N.

    At least 60 percent of the population are food insecure with 8.4 million people not knowing where their next meal is coming from.

    Less than 50 percent of health facilities are functioning and 18 percent of districts have no doctors — 16 million people do not have regular access to basic healthcare.

    Fifty percent of all children are stunted from lack of adequate nutrition.

    A cholera outbreak has largely come under control, but at least 55 percent of the population does not have regular access to safe water and basic hygiene.

  • US won’t ease sanctions without action by NKorea on nukes

    The White House said Monday North Korea won’t get sanctions relief until it takes “concrete action” toward denuclearization, the goal of President Donald Trump’s planned summit with Kim Jong Un.

    WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House said Monday North Korea won’t get sanctions relief until it takes “concrete action” toward denuclearization, the goal of President Donald Trump’s planned summit with Kim Jong Un.

    Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ comments appeared to leave open the possibility of easing the U.S.-led “maximum pressure” campaign before North Korea had completely given up its nuclear weapons.

    But Sanders said the U.S. wouldn’t make the mistake of past administrations in taking the North Koreans “simply at their word.” She said, “We’ve seen some steps in the right direction but we have a long way to go.”

    On Saturday, North Korea announced it will close its nuclear testing facility and suspend nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests – a move welcomed by Trump as “big progress.” The North stopped short of suggesting it will give up its nuclear weapons or scale back its production of missiles and their related components.

    Asked if the suspension of tests was a positive sign, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday, “Right now, I think there (are) a lot of reasons for optimism that the negotiations will be fruitful and we’ll see.”

    This Friday, U.S.-allied South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim will hold a summit in the demilitarized zone between the Koreas that could lay the ground for Trump’s planned meeting with the North Korean dictator in May or early June. The leaders of the U.S. and North Korea have never met during six decades of hostility since the Korean War.

    Sanders said the U.S. goal was the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. When asked if the president was willing to accept anything short of that goal before lifting sanctions or was willing to go incrementally, she told reporters: “Certainly no sanctions lifted until we see concrete actions taken by North Korea to denuclearize.”

    Last year, the U.S. spearheaded through the U.N. Security Council the toughest international sanctions yet against North Korea in response to three long-range missile launches and its most powerful nuclear test explosion yet. The Trump administration supplemented those restrictions with unilateral U.S. sanctions against firms that had conducted illicit trade with the North.

    This year, Kim has pivoted from confrontation to diplomacy and, according to South Korea and China, has expressed a commitment to denuclearization. There is still uncertainty about what he seeks in return.

    Three weeks ago, Trump’s pick to be the next secretary of state, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, became the most senior U.S. official to travel to North Korea in nearly two decades, but the content of his discussions with Kim has not been made public.

    The last nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea collapsed in 2012. The two nations also remain in a technical state of war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice not a peace treaty.

  • Russia says Syrian government now in control of rebel town

    The Russian military announced on Thursday that the Syrian government is now in full control of the last rebel-held town on the outskirts of Damascus that was the site of a suspected chemical attack o

    BEIRUT (AP) — The Russian military announced on Thursday that the Syrian government is now in full control of the last rebel-held town on the outskirts of Damascus that was the site of a suspected chemical attack over the weekend.

    The development would mark a major victory for the Syrian President Bashar Assad as the United States and allies consider punitive military attacks against Syria following the suspected chemical attack that killed 40 people.

    However, there was no official announcement by Damascus, and no indication that Syrian government forces had entered the town of Douma on Thursday. One government flag was raised in the town, a war monitoring group said.

    SEE ALSO: National security team springs to action after Trump warns of Syria strike

    Syrian TV stations showed civilians in vehicles carrying the Syrian flag crossing from Damascus into Douma.

    Douma and the enclave of eastern Ghouta, just east of Damascus, was a significant rebel stronghold during Syria’s civil war, now in its eighth year. Its effective surrender to government forces comes after years of siege by Assad’s troops and a months-long, intense military offensive.

    Meanwhile, Syrians are bracing for a possible U.S. attack in retaliation for Saturday’s alleged chemical assault in Douma. The Foreign Ministry in Damascus has denounced President Donald Trump’s threat to attack the country as “reckless” and a danger to international peace and security.

    Under an evacuation deal for eastern Ghouta that was mediated by Russia, Assad’s top ally, no Syrian troops are expected to enter Douma, only police. Another police force, incorporating former rebels, is also to be formed and deployed in Douma.

    Evacuation of armed gunmen and civilians who refuse the deal is still underway. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war through activists on the ground, there were still rebel fighters inside Douma on Thursday.

    But the leaders of Jaish al-Islam, or Army of Islam, the strongest rebel group in eastern Ghouta that controlled Douma, have all evacuated. It is not clear if any of the remaining rebel fighters will evacuate or hand in their weapons and take part in the new policing force.

    The Russian Defense Ministry statement followed a chaotic day in Douma that saw rebels there open fire as opposition fighters were leaving with families under the deal. It appeared designed to quell the tension and ensure the deal, which has been fraught with bumps, remains on track.

    The Russian ministry said the situation in Douma was “normalizing.” The Observatory said the Russian military is deploying to reassure thousands of remaining civilians in Douma.

    Wednesday’s turmoil in Douma came during the evacuation of the latest batch of civilians and rebels after pro-government supporters attempted to raise government flags over buildings and chanted in support of Assad.

    Some Russian journalists who had entered the town with a reconciliation delegation were wounded in the melee. The Observatory said more evacuations would take place on Thursday.

    Amid earlier disagreements, a truce collapsed last week and the Syrian government pressed ahead with its offensive.

    Then came Saturday’s suspected chemical attack in Douma, followed by international condemnation and threats of military action. Syria and Russia deny the attack took place.

    The evacuation deal called for the formation of a local council to administer Douma. Thousands of civilians are staying in Douma, and some fighters are also expected to stay, on condition that they hand in their weapons. More than 13,500 Syrian rebel fighters and their families left Douma this month.

    ___

    Vasilyeva reported from Moscow.

  • Donald Trump no longer an honorary Cossack

    Some Russians aren’t sitting back as they await President Trump’s promised strike via Twitter on their Syrian ally over a suspected chemical weapons attack.

    Some Russians aren’t sitting back as they await President Trump’s promised strike via Twitter on their Syrian ally over a suspected chemical weapons attack.

    The Irbis Cossacks, the St. Petersburg branch of the legendary Russian warrior clan, announced Wednesday it was stripping Mr. Trump of his status as an “honorary Cossack” and now say they will burn the American president in effigy for his menacing words.

    Andrei Polyakov, the ataman, or leader, of the Irbis Cossacks, told the Russian news website Rosbalt.ru that the move was made because of Mr. Trump’s “insults against the state, which cannot be tolerated.”

    The group first offered Mr. Trump honorary membership shortly after his 2016 election, citing his comments questioning the value of the NATO alliance and seeking to repair frayed U.S.-Russian ties. The relationship persisted despite the U.S. airstrikes Mr. Trump ordered in 2017 against a Syrian airbase over a previous suspected use of chemical weapons.

    “Political events began to unfold not as pleasantly as we’d like,” Ataman Polyakov told the website, according to The Moscow Times. “Realizing that we were mistaken, we made a decision to demote Trump and expel him from the organization in disgrace.”

    The Rosbalt account can be found here.

  • Russia issues more warnings against airstrikes on Syria

    Russian lawmakers have warned the United States that Moscow would view an airstrike on Syria as a war crime, saying it could trigger a direct military clash between the two former Cold War adversaries

    BEIRUT (AP) — Russian lawmakers have warned the United States that Moscow would view an airstrike on Syria as a war crime, saying it could trigger a direct military clash between the two former Cold War adversaries.

    Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon went even further, saying any missiles fired at Syria would be shot down and the launching sites targeted — a stark warning of a potential major confrontation in Syria.

    U.S. President Donald Trump threatened military action after last weekend’s suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held town near Damascus, which activists and rescuers say killed at least 40 people. The Syrian government and its ally Russia deny that such an attack happened.

    SEE ALSO: Trump cancels South America trip in sign Syria military strike imminent

    State news agency RIA Novosti on Wednesday quoted Andrei Krasov, deputy chairman of the State Duma’s defense committee, as saying that Russia will treat a U.S. airstrike on Syria “not just as an act of aggression but a war crime of the Western coalition.”

    Vladimir Shamanov, a retired general who heads the defense affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, said in televised remarks Tuesday that a U.S. strike in Syria could hurt Russian servicemen and trigger retaliation.

    He said that Russia has “the necessary means for that, and the Americans and their allies know that quite well.”

    Shamanov emphasized that a retaliatory Russian strike could target U.S. navy ships and aircraft. He added that the use of nuclear weapons is “unlikely.”

    Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin, meanwhile, told Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV station that any missiles fired at Syria would be shot down. He said he was referring to a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian armed forces chief of staff.

    “If there is a strike by the Americans, then… the missiles will be downed and the source of the missiles targeted,” Zasypkin said.

    Meanwhile, European airspace authorities warned aircraft to be careful over the coming days when flying close to Syria because of possible military action against President Bashar Assad’s forces.

    The Eurocontrol airspace organization said that the European Aviation Safety Agency had sent a “Rapid Alert Notification” that flight operators needed to consider the possibility of air or missile strikes into Syria.

    U.S. officials have consulted with global allies on a possible joint military response to Syria’s alleged poison gas attack.

    In a notice posted to Eurocontrol’s website, EASA said: “Due to the possible launch of air strikes into Syria with air-to-ground and/or cruise missiles within the next 72 hours, and the possibility of intermittent disruption of radio navigation equipment, due consideration needs to be taken.”

  • Saudi Arabia 9/11 lawsuit can proceed, judge rules

    A lawsuit accusing the Saudi Arabian government of complicity in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and seeking billions of dollars in damages, can go forward, a judge ruled Wednesday.

    A lawsuit accusing the Saudi Arabian government of complicity in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and seeking billions of dollars in damages, can go forward, a judge ruled Wednesday.

    U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan dismissed Saudi Arabia’s motion to dismiss the case on the grounds of lack of proof of official complicity.

    But Judge Daniels said the plaintiffs — victims’ relatives and their families — can “narrowly articulate a reasonable basis for this Court to assume jurisdiction under [the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act] over Plaintiffs’ claims against Saudi Arabia.”

    Judge Daniels said he would “allow Plaintiffs limited jurisdictional discovery” of evidence against Saudi Arabia.

    JASTA, passed by Congress in 2016 over President Barack Obama’s veto and Saudi warnings of damage to international relations, created an exception under U.S. law to claims of sovereign immunity by foreign governments. The new law allows U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments in federal court for acts that kill Americans on U.S. soil.

    James Kreindler, a lawyer for many of the plaintiffs, told Reuters news agency he was “delighted” by the judge’s letting the lawsuit go ahead.

    “We have been pressing to proceed with the case and conduct discovery from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, so that the full story can come to light, and expose the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks,” he told the British wire service.

    On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 Al Qaeda terrorists — 15 of them Saudi citizens — hijacked four planes and slammed two of them into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. One crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, apparently ditching a planned attack on Congress because of a passenger uprising. All told, nearly 3,000 people were killed.

    The 9-11 Commission absolved the Saudi government of official or direct complicity in the attacks, but said it could not rule out the possibility that “charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to Al-Qaeda.”

    Judge Daniels did limit the plaintiffs’ case on the facts though.

    He said he would allow the 9-11 families to argue that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the activities of an imam at King Fahd Mosque in California, and Omar al-Bayoumi, said to be an intelligence officer.

    Mr. al-Bayoumi and imam Fahad al Thumairy purportedly helped two of the terrorists integrate into U.S. life and prepare for the attacks.

    But he threw out as beyond his jurisdiction claims that two Saudi banks — National Commercial Bank and Al Rajhi Bank — and the construction company owned by the estranged family of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, had helped finance the attacks.

  • Obama, in Japan, says NKorea’s isolation means less leverage

    Former President Barack Obama said Sunday that negotiations with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program are difficult, partly because the country’s isolation minimizes possible leverage, such as t

    TOKYO (AP) – Former President Barack Obama said Sunday that negotiations with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program are difficult, partly because the country’s isolation minimizes possible leverage, such as trade and travel sanctions against Pyongyang.

    “North Korea is an example of a country that is so far out of the international norms and so disconnected with the rest of the world,” Obama told a packed hall in Tokyo.

    He stressed that the effort to get North Korea to give up nuclear weapons remains difficult, but said countries working together, including China, South Korea and Japan, to pressure the North is better than nations working alone.

    He noted that past U.S. efforts on Iran’s nuclear weapons were more successful because there was more leverage, but that there’s little commerce and travel with North Korea to being with.

    “That makes them less subject to these kinds of negotiations,” he said of North Korea.

    Obama was speaking at an event sponsored by a Japanese nonprofit group during an Asia-Pacific trip that included earlier stops in Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. Obama’s work after leaving office has been focused on nurturing young leaders.

    Obama, welcomed by a standing ovation, said that the U.S.-Japan alliance remains strong, and that the U.S. is committed to defending Japan.

    “North Korea is a real threat,” he said.

    “Our view has always been that we would prefer to resolve these issues peacefully,” he said, adding that otherwise “the cost in terms of human life would be significant.”

    He acknowledged that progress on a nuclear-free world will likely take a long time as long as Russia and the U.S. can’t agree to reduce their stockpiles.

    Obama also reflected on his 2016 visit to Hiroshima, one of two Japanese cities where the U.S. dropped atomic bombs in the closing days of World War II. His visit was the first by an American president.

    Almost all American presidents tend to be relatively popular in Japan, which views the U.S. as its most important ally. But many Japanese particularly appreciate Obama’s efforts on denuclearization and remember with fondness his trip to Hiroshima and his message of working toward a world without nuclear weapons.

    “It was an extraordinarily powerful moment for me,” Obama recalled.

    ___

    Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

    Her work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/yuri%20kageyama

  • French hero officer who swapped himself for hostage dies

    A French police officer who offered himself up to an Islamic extremist gunman in exchange for a hostage has died, raising the death toll in the attack in southern France to four. He was honored Saturd

    TREBES, France (AP) — A French police officer who offered himself up to an Islamic extremist gunman in exchange for a hostage has died, raising the death toll in the attack in southern France to four. He was honored Saturday as a national hero of “exceptional courage and selflessness.”

    Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, 44, was among the first officers to respond to the attack Friday on the supermarket in the southern French town of Trebes.

    Beltrame, who joined the elite police special forces in 2003 and served in Iraq in 2005, had organized a training session in the Aude region in December for just such a hostage situation. At the time, he armed his officers with paintball guns, according to the Depeche du Midi newspaper.

    “We want to be as close to real conditions as possible,” he said then.

    But when he went inside the supermarket, he gave up his own weapon and volunteered himself in exchange for a female hostage.

    Unbeknownst to the Morocco-born hostage-taker, he left his cellphone on so police outside could hear what was happening in the store. They stormed the building when they heard gunshots, officials said. Beltrame was fatally wounded.

    In addition to the four people killed by the gunman in his rampage Friday, the attacker was killed by police. Fifteen others were injured.

    “Arnaud Beltrame died in the service of the nation to which he had already given so much,” President Emmanuel Macron said. “In giving his life to end the deadly plan of a jihadi terrorist, he fell as a hero.”

    French police and soldiers have been a prime target of attacks by extremists, with 10 killed in recent years, including Beltrame. Other victims include three soldiers killed near Toulouse in 2012, three police officers shot to death in 2015, a police couple killed in their home in 2016 and a police officer killed on Paris‘ Champs-Elysees in 2017. Dozens of others have been wounded.

    According to Macron’s statement, Beltrame also served as a member of the presidential guard and in 2012 earned one of France’s highest honors, the Order of Merit. He was married with no children.

    Cedric Beltrame told RTL radio Saturday that his brother died “a hero.”

    “He was well aware he had almost no chance. He was very aware of what he was doing,” Cedric Beltrame said.

    Beltrame’s mother told RTL radio that, for her son, “to defend the homeland” was “his reason to live.”

    “He would have said to me, ‘I’m doing my job, Mom, nothing more,’” she said.

    People were placing flowers in front of the Gendarmerie headquarters in the French medieval city of Carcassone to pay tribute to Lt. Col. Beltrame. Flags at all gendarmeries were ordered to fly at half-staff.

    Macron says investigators will focus on establishing how the gunman, identified by prosecutors as Morocco-born Redouane Lakdim, 25, got his weapon and how he became radicalized.

    On Friday night, authorities searched a car and the apartment complex in central Carcassonne where Lakdim was believed to live. Two people were detained over alleged links with a terrorist enterprise, one woman close to Lakdim and a friend of his, a 17-year-old male, Paris prosecutor’s office said.

    Lakdim was known to police for petty crime and drug dealing. But he was also under surveillance and since 2014 was on the so-called Fiche S list, a government register of individuals suspected of being radicalized but who have yet to perform acts of terrorism.

    Despite this, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said there was “no warning sign” that Lakdim would carry out an attack.

    The four-hour drama began at 10:13 a.m. when Lakdim hijacked a car near Carcassonne, killing one person in the car and wounding the other, the prosecutor said.

    Lakdim then fired six shots at police officers on their way back from jogging near Carcassonne, hitting one in the shoulder, said Yves Lefebvre of the SGP Police-FO police union.

    Lakdim then went to a Super U supermarket in nearby Trebes, 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Toulouse, shooting and killing two people in the market and taking hostages. He shouted “Allahu akbar!” — the Arabic phrase for God is great — and said he was a “soldier of the Islamic State” as he entered the Super U, where about 50 people were inside, Molins said.

    Special police units converged on the scene while authorities blocked roads.

    “We heard an explosion — well, several explosions,” shopper Christian Guibbert told reporters. “I saw a man lying on the floor and another person, very agitated, who had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.”

    Guibbert said he put his wife, sister-in-law and other shoppers in the meat locker for safety.

    The manager of the supermarket, who would identify herself only by her first name, Samia, was in her office when she heard the shots.

    “Call the gendarmes,” she told her employees. “There’s a terrorist in the store.”

    She said she helped evacuate as many people as possible.

    “It was terrifying,” Samia said.

    During the standoff, Lakdim requested the release of Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving assailant of the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead. The interior minister suggested, however, that Abdeslam’s release wasn’t a key motive for the attack.

    The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said the attacker was responding to the group’s calls to target countries in the U.S.-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against IS militants in Syria and Iraq since 2014. France has been repeatedly targeted because of its participation.

    France has been on high alert since a series of extremist attacks in 2015 and 2016 that killed more than 200 people.

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Elaine Ganley. Thomas Adamson, Samuel Petrequin, Sylvie Corbet, Angela Charlton and Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report from Paris.

    ___

    This story has been corrected to show dead policeman’s rank was Lt. Col., not Col. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack. The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said the attacker was responding to the group’s calls to target countries in the U.S.-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against IS militants.

  • No survivors in U.S. helicopter crash in western Iraq

    The entire crew of a U.S. Air Force search-and-rescue helicopter were killed when their aircraft crashed in western Iraq, American commanders with the U.S.-led operation against the Islamic State in t

    The entire crew of a U.S. Air Force search-and-rescue helicopter were killed when their aircraft crashed in western Iraq, American commanders with the U.S.-led operation against the Islamic State in the country confirmed Friday.

    The seven-member crew of the HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter were conducting an operation near Al Qaim in Anbar Governorate, nearly 250 miles northwest of Baghdad along the Iraqi-Syrian border.

    “All personnel aboard were killed in the crash,” said Brig. Gen. Jonathan P. Braga, director of operations, said in a command statement.

    The operation was reportedly in support of the coalition effort to battle the terror group known as ISIS in Iraq, according to a statement issued by command officials at Operation Inherent Resolve.

    While the incident is still under investigation, there are no indications the helicopter was brought down as a result of enemy fire, Gen. Braga added in the statement issued early Friday.

    “This tragedy reminds us of the risks our men and women face every day in service of our nations. We are thinking of the loved ones of these service members today,” Gen. Braga said in Monday’s statement, refusing to disclose the identities of the slain service members.

  • Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi: Egypt hopes in Sinai Peninsula, troubled by swap talk

    Egyptians took to the streets last year to protest President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s decision to give two strategically important Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

    CAIRO — Egyptians took to the streets last year to protest President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s decision to give two strategically important Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

    But that protest — rare in a country where Mr. el-Sissi has clamped down on the political opposition — could pale in comparison with the backlash the government would face if Mr. el-Sissi agrees to a rumored American Arab-Israeli peace plan that would ask Cairo to give up some of the Sinai Peninsula as a new homeland for Palestinians. In turn, Palestinians would cede much of the West Bank to Israeli settlers.

    Naeem Gabr, 50, general coordinator of the North Sinai Tribes, bitterly rejects the proposed swap. His association represents 11 clans numbering about 400,000 people on the peninsula.

    “Sinai is the land of our ancestors,” he said. “Palestinian refugees can live in Jordan. That’s a solution that would not disturb or undermine the Egyptian side nor Sinai tribes.”

    The Sinai swap was one of the overlooked bits of reporting from journalist Michael Wolff’s White House insider tell-all book “Fire and Fury.” Most of the attention in the U.S. focused on domestic issues, tidbits about the backstage doings of the Trump administration, and the career self-immolation of former White House top adviser Steve Bannon for agreeing to talk to the author.

    But it was the Sinai passages that attracted all the attention in Egypt.

    Steeped in biblical history, strategically located between Cairo and Israel and divided between resorts on the sun-kissed south coast and Islamic State hideouts in the rugged interior, the Sinai Peninsula has become a battleground over the future of Egypt — whether or not Mr. Wolff’s account of a Trump peace plan is accurate.

    Mr. el-Sissi has launched a succession of military operations in the peninsula, which is roughly the size of West Virginia, with the aim of uprooting jihadi groups that have launched terrorist attacks against Egyptian security forces and Coptic Christians.

    Islamic State claimed responsibility for the October 2015 downing of a passenger jet taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh and bound for St. Petersburg, Russia. The attack in the Sinai resort town, which killed 224 people, gutted tourism, one of the Egyptian economy’s biggest foreign currency generators.

    The Egyptian military revealed late last week that 16 troops had been killed and 19 wounded since the broad-scale Sinai offensive was launched in February. The Associated Press, citing army spokesman Col. Tamer al-Rifai, reported that 105 militants had been killed and nearly 3,000 fighters detained.

    The jihadis’ penetration of Sinai led to a surge of coordination between Egyptian and Israeli militaries, including joint moves to destroy tunnels that the militants used to move men and supplies in and out of Hamas-controlled Gaza, as well as the deployments of Egyptian and Israeli fighter aircraft and drones against their common enemy.

    Despite an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty dating back to the days of Anwar Sadat, direct cooperation with the Israelis remains controversial and the rumors have eroded Mr. el-Sissi’s support among Sinai’s 1.4 million inhabitants.

    “Hundreds of civilians have been killed, including men, women, children and even infants,” said Mohannad Sabry, a former Sinai resident and author of “Sinai: Egypt’s Linchpin, Gaza’s Lifeline, Israel’s Nightmare.” “Close to a dozen villages have been partially or fully destroyed by the military, and hundreds of thousands of productive trees, in farms owned by the locals, have been destroyed.”

    Reviving the economy

    Campaigning on his government’s investments in energy infrastructure and urban development, Mr. el-Sissi, a former army chief who first took power in a 2013 coup, is expected win re-election easily in the March 26-28 vote. In the face of criticism from human rights groups, many of the president’s best-known rivals have been blocked from running in the election.

    Sinai is crucial to Mr. el-Sissi’s plans to reinvigorate the economy. Egypt has deals with Israel and Cyprus that require a secure pipeline across the peninsula if the country is to capitalize on the 120 trillion cubic feet of gas discovered in the past decade in the eastern Mediterranean.

    Sinai residents killed a similar deal in January 2011, a month after the Tahrir Square revolution broke out in Cairo, by blowing up a pumping station in a El Arish. As a result, security in the region was called into question.

    Gila Gamliel, Israel’s minister of social equality, told Israel National News that she would prefer putting a Palestinian state in Sinai rather than squeezing one between Israel and Jordan, as Mr. Wolff describes in his book. She is responsible for the more than 200,000 Bedouin in Israel.

    “If it becomes clear that there is no alternative but to establish an actual Palestinian state, then this would be a regional problem, not just Israel’s,” Ms. Gamliel said in the Nov. 9 interview. “It is appropriate that parts of the Arab countries, such as the Sinai Peninsula, should be considered.”

    Israel has good reason to be concerned about Sinai.

    Radicalized Muslim Brotherhood supporters fled to the El Arish area after then-Gen. el-Sissi ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. They found a place among the Bedouin and a mixed population of Egyptians and Palestinian refugees clustered along the coastal area bordering Hamas-controlled Gaza.

    The government’s military crackdown in the peninsula initially helped the Islamic State recruit supporters there.

    “The lack of real development in Sinai helped ISIS expand and establish a foothold recruiting citizens due to the marginalization they suffered along the years,” Mr. Gabr said.

    But a deadly Islamic State attack on a mosque in the northern Sinai town of Al Rawda late last year damaged the group’s standing in the community.

    “We will not be consoled until each murderer in Sinai is eliminated, and no mercy will be shown,” said Eissa El Kareen, an elder in the El Romylat tribe who lost dozens of brothers and cousins in the massacre.

    The incident spurred Mr. el-Sissi to launch more military strikes in the region. “This attack will do nothing but make us stronger and more persistent in our effort to combat terrorism,” he said in public remarks after the unprecedented killings of 305 mostly Bedouin Muslim worshippers.

    Egypt could hardly hand over part of Sinai after such statements, said Tarek Fahmy, a professor who leads the political and strategic unit at the National Center for Middle East Studies in Cairo.

    “President el-Sissi … will not reclaim Sinai in order to leave it,” Mr. Fahmy said. “The idea is not an acceptable one for the Egyptian leadership.”