In News & Reports

By NYT –

Gen. Abbas Kamel, a longtime confidant of Egypt’s president, oversaw the country’s most important international relationships and helped maintain the president’s authoritarian grip.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt replaced the powerful head of the country’s intelligence services on Wednesday, according to state media, switching out the Egyptian official who plays a leading role in cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

The official, Gen. Abbas Kamel, had overseen many of Egypt’s most important domestic and foreign policy matters, becoming the face of its extensive security apparatus, which has overseen crackdowns on political opponents and kept Mr. el-Sisi firmly in control. The spy chief’s power often appeared to be second only to the president’s.

The reasons for the move were unclear, and the longstanding secrecy surrounding the highest levels of Egypt’s government means that Mr. el-Sisi’s decision is likely to go unexplained. But it came as Egypt is rocked by the regional instability set off by the nearby war in Gaza, which is damaging Egypt’s already struggling economy and putting intense pressure on its peace treaty with Israel as well as on its relationships with Hamas and the United States.

State media and the presidency’s statement said only that General Kamel was replaced by Maj. Gen. Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, who, according to the state-linked Extra News channel, had served as a deputy to the departing intelligence chief. General Kamel was named a special envoy and adviser to the president and general coordinator of the security services, according to the statement.

It was not immediately clear whether this was a promotion or a demotion for General Kamel or whether he would continue to play a role in the talks between Israel and Hamas.

Working closely with William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director; David Barnea, the head of Israel’s spy service; and Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, General Kamel had become a key mediator in the negotiations over the past year to end the conflict. He also helped broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in May 2021.

But the current talks have stalled since a weeklong truce in November, which paused the fighting and saw more than 100 hostages abducted in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel released from Gaza. Israel also released Palestinian prisoners and detainees during that pause.

General Kamel’s career has been intertwined with Mr. el-Sisi’s since they were young military officers together, according to analysts who have tracked their rise.

As Mr. el-Sisi climbed from general to head of military intelligence to defense minister, he kept General Kamel by his side as chief of staff and gatekeeper, even as other confidants were dismissed or sidelined.

Audio recordings leaked in 2015 appeared to show the spy chief as a steadfast loyalist who helped Mr. el-Sisi (come to) power in 2013, deposing (Mohamed Morsi) who was voted into office after Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution brought down its longtime autocratic president.

In 2018, after Egypt’s intelligence apparatus failed to alert Mr. el-Sisi about a coming electoral challenge by three military officers, the president put General Kamel in charge. Aided by another new hire — Mr. el-Sisi’s son Mahmoud el-Sisi — General Kamel soon purged the ranks of anyone suspected of opposing the president.

Since then, the agency that General Kamel leads, the General Intelligence Service, has become the primary instrument of Mr. el-Sisi’s authoritarian rule.

General Kamel took control over all key foreign policy matters, according to analysts, regularly making official visits to neighboring countries and overseeing relationships like those with United States officials and the oil-rich gulf countries on whom Egypt depends for aid and investment. Egypt’s once-influential civilian foreign ministry was largely shunted aside amid Mr. Kamel’s ascent.

Those responsibilities placed General Kamel at the heart of the corruption case against Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who was charged with steering aid and weapons to Egypt in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes as part of a wide-ranging and yearslong conspiracy. The New York Times has reported that General Kamel was one of the officials described anonymously in Mr. Menendez’s indictment as personally nurturing Egypt’s relationship with the senator.

The intelligence agency has also shouldered broad responsibility within Egypt, ensuring Parliament acts in Mr. el-Sisi’s interests and keeping Egyptian media in line. General Kamel was deputized to manage the state’s relationship with political parties and smooth things over with opposition leaders when Mr. el-Sisi needed to show he was becoming more politically inclusive, opposition members have said.

General Kamel’s agency would also instruct government mouthpieces on Egyptian TV news channels on what to emphasize. It openly owns much of the media, shaping the state’s narrative with news sites and even hit TV shows and movies produced by companies owned by the state security services.

Along the way, the General Intelligence Service has greatly enriched itself by handing sweetheart contracts to cronies or buying up highly lucrative companies, experts on Egypt, including Timothy E. Kaldas of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, say. Hotels, cement manufacturing, pasta factories, bottled water and gas stations are just some of the industries the security establishment has invested in. These opaque companies are typically not subject to the taxes, customs or regulations that private-sector businesses face.

The profits are used to reward loyalists, analysts say — an insurance policy of sorts for a leadership hemorrhaging support among ordinary Egyptians, who are struggling to stay afloat during Egypt’s worst economic crisis in decades.

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Egypt Replaces Spy Chief Trusted by U.S., Israel and Hamas

By WSJ –

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi on Wednesday replaced his powerful spy chief, who played an instrumental role in brokering cease-fire and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

The former intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, who for years was seen as the second-most powerful person in the Middle East’s most-populous nation, built trusted relationships with U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials and also leaders in Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. His exit comes amid a tumultuous period as the war in Gaza strains Egypt’s relations with Israel and puts at risk the two countries’ 45-year-old peace treaty.

Kamel was reappointed as special envoy of the president and general coordinator of the security services, according to Egyptian state media. Within Egypt’s opaque political system, officials were divided over whether Kamel’s new role is a promotion to oversee both the security and intelligence apparatus or a demotion.

He was replaced by another longtime intelligence official, Hassan Rashad, as chief of the General Intelligence Service, which is one of several large intelligence agencies in Egypt, state media said.

Egypt has increasingly been drawn into the regional instability spawned by the war in neighboring Gaza since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which killed 1,200 Israelis and captured some 250 others as hostages, according to authorities there. The war has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants, while Israeli bombing has reduced much of the coastal enclave to rubble.

Kamel has taken on an outsize role in the Gaza crisis, shuttling between Israel and Hamas and attempting to broker a cease-fire deal that would also release Israeli hostages held by the militant group in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

During those efforts he worked closely with Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, Israeli spy chief David Barnea and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, a foursome who have met repeatedly throughout a year of war in a long effort to broker an end to the war.

The four played a key role in diplomacy that led to a weeklong truce last November that halted the fighting and released more than 100 hostages from Gaza along with Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Months of negotiations since have yielded little result, largely due to the intransigence of Israeli and Hamas leadership.

The war in Gaza has heightened tensions in Egypt, sparking sporadic protests, a slump in traffic through the Suez Canal, and a crisis in relations with Israel. Egypt was the first Arab country to recognize Israel in 1979 after the two fought a series of wars. For decades the two countries have had an uneasy relationship predicated on mutual security and intelligence interests, with little contact among ordinary Israelis and Egyptians.

Kamel is among a tiny number of trusted lieutenants to Sisi, a former general who came to power (..) in 2013 (..). Both men were members of the country’s military intelligence before Sisi’s rise to power.

“He is and remains one of the few people in the system trusted by the president,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, an expert on Egyptian governance and the U.S. program director at International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution organization. “I don’t expect that he’s going to be disappearing from the scene.”

Kamel also played a key role in brokering the truce that ended a previous conflict between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, which killed more than 200 Palestinians and more than a dozen Israelis.

Kamel’s replacement, Rashad, has worked in Egyptian intelligence services for 34 years and previously served as Kamel’s deputy. He oversaw key files such as Egypt’s relationship with Iran and its proxies. Rashad is a graduate of Egypt’s Military Technical College, known domestically for training several key figures for the intelligence services. 

In his decade in power Sisi has given Egypt’s spy agencies broad powers over civilian affairs in Egypt, with Kamel taking a prominent role in diplomacy over important issues including the conflicts in neighboring Libya and Sudan.

Kamel was also the most prominent official in a sprawling security state that has also jailed thousands of people in a clampdown on political opponents. Many Egyptians arrested for protesting or speaking out against the government say they have been tortured in prison. The Egyptian government denies the abuses and says its arrests were needed to restore security.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/world/middleeast/egypt-replaces-spy-chief.html

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/egypt-replaces-spy-chief-trusted-by-u-s-israel-and-hamas-8bf2b8a7?mod=itp_wsj,djemITP_h

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/world/middleeast/egypt-replaces-spy-chief.html
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