ABSTRACT
For the mukhabarat, 9/11 was a grim vindication of sorts for all the warnings about al-Qa’ida that had been passed to the Americans and Europeans in the 1990s. But 11 September also gave EGIS the opportunity to build upon its alliance with the CIA. One consequence of America’s post-11 September ‘global war on terrorism’ was greater mukhabarat access to US intelligence and analytical training, the CIA’s extensive hub of international contacts, and surveillance technology. Indeed, Egypt’s secret services became part of an intelligence network of over 100 nations whose primary goal is the destruction of the al-Qa’ida network. All of this was something the mukhabarat had been fervently pressing for in the 1990s but with limited success.1 In addition to its war on al-Qa’ida, EGIS has enjoyed a high profile (for an intelligence service) in ameliorating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mediating between competing Palestinian factions. But when the internal Palestinian conflict devolved into de facto civil war in 2006, some of the shortcomings of using EGIS ‘cryptodiplomacy’ in peace building were exposed. Nonetheless, Cairo views stability in the Palestinian territories as integral to Egyptian national security, and EGIS’s continued involvement in this arena is a given. As Egypt entered the first decade of the twenty-first century (ce), uncertainties persist regarding its future stability. Mubarak’s age and the sclerosis afflicting his regime are damaging enough; however, Egypt’s burgeoning population, glaring socioeconomic inequalities, corruption and lack of democratic institutions raise further doubts about the longevity of the ‘army republic.’ One thing is clear though: the three organizations that comprise the Egyptian intelligence community will continue to serve as the eyes, ears and, ultimately the shield, of the Egyptian state.
