Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate

Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate
Gihaz al-Mukhabarat al-Amma
جهاز المخابرات العامة
Emblem of the EGIS
Agency overview
Formed	1954
Jurisdiction	Government of Egypt
Headquarters	Cairo, Egypt
Agency executive	Murad Muwafi, Director
Parent agency	Presidency of Egypt

The General Intelligence Services (GIS) (Arabic: جهاز المخابرات العامة‎ / Gihaz al-Mukhabarat al-Amma), often called the Mukhabarat (Arabic: المخابرات‎ / al-Mukhabarat), is an Egyptian intelligence agency responsible for providing national security intelligence, both domestically and transnationally, with a counter-terrorism focus.^[1]

The GIS is part of the Egyptian intelligence community, together with the Office of Military Intelligence Services and Reconnaissance (Arabic: ادارة المخابرات الحربية والاستطلاع‎ / Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Harbyya wa al-Istitla) and the State Security Investigations Service (SSIS) (Arabic: جهاز مباحث أمن الدولة‎ / Gihaz Mabahith Amn al-Dawla).^[1]

History

The decision to set up an Egyptian intelligence service was taken by President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954, and placed under the command of Zakaria Mohieddin (ar:زكريا محيي الدين).

However, the agency's rose in importance when Nasser assigned its command to Salah Nasr (ar:صلاح نصر), who held the post of director of the GIS from 1957 to 1967.

Under Nasr's supervision, the GIS relocated to its own building and established separate divisions for Radio, Computer, Forgery and Black Operations.

To cover the agency's expenses, Nasr set up Al Nasr Company, ostensibly an import-export firm, as a front.

For several years the name of GIS director was a secret only known to high officials and government Newspapers chief editors. However, Major-General Omar Suleiman ar:عمر سليمان who was the Chief of the GIS from 1993 to January 2011, was the first one the break this taboo. His name was published before he himself became a known face in media after being envoyed by the former Egyptian president Mubarak 1981-2011 to Israel, USA and Ghaza in many occasions.

On January 31st 2011, Major-General Murad Muwafi was declared the current director of GIS, after Omar Suleiman was appointed as a Vice President of the Arab Republic of Egyptthen resigned after the former president Mubarak had to step down during the Egyptian revolution.

Achievements

In spite of the rule which says "success in intelligence world is a buried secret while failure is a world wide scandal" the GIS did achieve many successes a few of which were released and dramatized in Egyptian TV and Cinema

1. The GIS states that it managed to plant an Egyptian agent among Jewish immigrants to Israel. That agent, Refaat Al-Gammal, managed to live 18 years in Israel without being discovered. In those years, he established a network of spies in various fields of the Israeli community, though this is contradicted by various Israeli sources, which state that Refaat was a double agent and helped IDF to win the Six Day War.^[2][3]

1. In 1970 the GIS managed to hunt an Israeli Oil Rig^{[disambiguation needed ]} while being shipped from Canada to Sinai (occupied at that time). Clandestine GIS agents and frogmen succeeded in tracing the Oil Rig to Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire and planted sets of explosives, had them detonated and crippled the rig. Ironically, this was done while the city was full, not only of MOSSAD agents protecting the Oil Rig, but also while it was full of CIA agents who were guarding the NASA astronauts in their visit to "Côte d'Ivoire". This operation was published in 1985 under the name of Al -Haffar operation it was supervised at that time by EGIS director " Ameen Heweedy" (1921–2009).
2. Between 1968 and 1972 GIS managed to infiltrate the residence of the American diplomatic delegation in Cairo and plant tape recorders (refer to reference 1).
3. Perhaps a major success of the GIS was handling the Egyptian "strategic deception plan" which was carried out from 01/1970 to 10/1973 and aimed to conceal the Egyptian plans to launch massive operation to free occupied Sinai on 06/10/1973 starting the Yom Kippur war. The plan included planting false information and hidden implied data in Egyptian president Sadat's speeches and newspapers Articles. For example the GIS prepared the military operations and evacuated complete sections of Cairo hospitals to be ready for receiving war casualties. This evacuation that took place few days before the war started, was done after declaring false information that those hospitals were infected with Tetanus.

The plan included a major operation whose details are still not published. This operation aimed at getting detailed information of American Spy satellites covering Middle East, by knowing exact trajectories and timing of those Satellites the GIS prepared complicated logistic movement schedules for all Egyptian Army units to avoid moving mass troops in timings where they could be spotted by satellites.

Current status

Despite declared peace between Egypt and Israel, every few years the GIS declares the arrest of Israeli espionage networks^{[citation needed]}, yet until now Israel has not declared arrest of any Egyptian spies on its soil^{[citation needed]}. The two countries agreed not to get engaged in espionage against each other after signing the 1979 peace treaty^{[citation needed]}.

Declared GIS Chiefs in chronological order

1. Zakaria Mohieddin (1952–1956)
2. Ali Sabry (1956–1957)
3. Salah Nasr Al Nogomy (1957–1967)
4. Ameen Heweedy (1967–1970)
5. Hafez Ismail (1970 - 1970)
6. Ahmad Kamel (1970–1971)
7. Ahmad Ismail Ali (1971–1972)
8. Karim El-Leithy (1972–1973)
9. Wagdi Mosaad (1974–1978)
10. Mohammad Saed Al Mahy (1978–1981)
11. Foad Nassar (1981–1983)
12. Rafaat osman Jibrel (1983–1986)
13. Kamal Hassan Ali (1986–1989)
14. Omar Negm (1989–1991)
15. Nour El Dien Afeefy (1991–1993)
16. Omar Suleiman (1993–2011)
17. Murad Muwafi (2011–Present)

See also

• List of (worldwide) intelligence agencies

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Sullivan and Jones (2008): 33
2. ^ The Spies: Israel's Counter-Espionage Wars, Yossi Melman, Eitan Haber
3. ^ http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=432609&contrassID=2&subContrassID=21&sbSubContrassID=0

Further reading

• Sirrs, Owen L. (2010). A History of the Egyptian Intelligence Service: A History of the Mukhabarat, 1910-2009. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415569200. 
• Sullivan, Denis J.; Jones, Kimberley (2008). Global security watch - Egypt: a reference handbook. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International. ISBN 978-0-275-99482-2. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fGWiXfGrBWAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• 1973- Weapons and Diplomacy- Heikal, Mohammd Hassanien - Printed 1993 - Al Ahram- Egypt
• Auto biography of Salah Nasr- Printed 1998- Dar Al Khayal - Egypt