IDF drills for possible Islamic State attacks across southern border on foot, in cars
In week-long exercise, infantry, tanks, helicopters train to thwart assault on Negev communties by Sinai-based terrorists
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
With helicopters, tanks, and infantry soldiers, the Sagi Territorial Brigade trained over the past week to fight Islamic State terrorists should they break through the Egyptian border and attack the communities and military installations of the Negev desert.
The Israel Defense Forces’ Sagi Brigade guards the western Negev and, beginning last Sunday and ending Thursday, its territory was under simulated attack.
The brigade simulated terrorists from the Islamic State’s Sinai Province infiltrating the border on foot and in vehicles, as well as launching rockets at Israeli communities, said Maj. Shachar Nachmani, the unit’s chief operations officer.
The exercise took place in the same week as Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau released an updated and more severe warning against travel to the Sinai Peninsula in light of the Islamic State affiliate’s growing strength and expressed desire to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians. (The IDF says its exercises are planned months in advance and not tied to specific world events.)
The restive Sinai has been wracked by terror attacks carried out by a local Islamic State affiliate known as Sinai Province, including the downing of a Russian passenger jet in 2015.
Despite intensive efforts by Egyptian forces to battle the group, it has rebounded and grown brazen in attacks on Egyptian troops and civilians, including Coptic Christians, in recent months, the head of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau said.
“There is a serious and current threat of terror attacks being carried out against tourists, notably Israelis, in the immediate future,” according to the bureau’s travel advisory.
‘Anyone can see the way the Islamic State acts on YouTube, I think it’s clear enough’
The specifics of last week’s exercise were based on both up-to-date intelligence on Sinai-based terrorist groups and also past experience.
“They were reasonable scenarios that we believe could happen, in light of situational assessments we’ve done in the field,” Nachmani said over the phone.
The vehicular attacks, for example, drew on an event in August 2012, when terrorists in the peninsula attacked an Egyptian military base, stole two armored personnel carriers and used one of them to break through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. They traveled two kilometers inside Israel before an air force missile destroyed the vehicles and IDF soldiers shot the attacking terrorists dead.
The missile attack scenario was based on a far more recent incident — four rockets launched at the southern city of Eilat in February, Nachmani said.
These events were threaded together to form what is known in the army as a “rolling exercise,” where one event leads to the next, rather than a series of disconnected scenarios, he said.
Most of the week-long exercise was performed by the mixed-gender Caracal Battalion, which serves under the Sagi Brigade. But the male and female combat soldiers were also joined by tank units serving inside the brigade, as well as by helicopters from the Israeli Air Force.
In light of the integration of ground and air forces, though not technically the brigade’s largest exercise of the year, last week’s drill was its most complex, Nachmani said.
To ensure the preparedness of civilians near the Egyptian border, in the area of Nitzana, the army also worked with local police and the security officers of the nearby communties, he said.
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Nachmani wouldn’t say where exactly the IDF conducted its exercises, beyond the “Nitzana area and the hills south of it,” for fear that the Islamic State would take the challenge and attempt to carry out attacks there.
He was also hesitant to discuss the specifics of what the army believed Sinai terrorists would do once inside Israel.
“Anyone can see the way the Islamic State acts on YouTube, I think it’s clear enough,” the major said. “We’re preparing our troops to fight that.”
