text: Reflecting the increased popular interest in the subject of the repatriations, which had become by the early 1980s to be a symbol of western "pusillanimity" towards the Soviet Union, a monument was unveiled in London on 6 March 1982 to "all the victims of Yalta". John Joliffe, a conservative Catholic British intellectual whose fund-raising help build the monument accused "the British government and their advisors of merciless inhumanity", and ignoring the fact that Churchill was a Conservative went on to blame the repatriations on "the hypocrisy and feebleness of progressive leftists who turned a blind eye to the communist enslavement of Eastern Europe." In May 1983, Tolstoy published an article "The Klagenfurt Conspiracy" in "Encounter" magazine alleging a conspiracy by Harold Macmillan, the British "resident minister" for the Mediterranean, Field Marshal Harold Alexander and other British officials to hand over the Cossacks. In his article, Tolstoy alleged that on 13 May 1945 in a meeting in the Austrian city of Klagenfurt that Macmillan gave the orders to repatriate all Cossacks regardless if they were Soviet citizens or not. On 11 December 1984, Macmillan was interviewed on the BBC by Ludovic Kennedy and during the course of the interview Kennedy asked several questions about the Cossack repatriation in 1945. Macmillan seems to have been taken by surprise by Kennedy's questions, and the defensive tone of his answers certainly gave public the impression that he had something to hide. Several of Macmillan's statements such as he felt no guilt because the Cossacks were "rebels against Russia", "not friends of ours" and most damaging of all "the Cossacks were practically savages" did not help his reputation. In 1986, Tolstoy followed up his 1983 article with the book "The Minister and the Massacres" alleging a conspiracy led by Macmillan to deliberately hand over refugees from the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia knowing full well they would be executed. As Macmillan went on to serve as prime minister between 1957 and 1963, Tolstoy's allegations attracted tremendous attention in Britain while also causing immense controversy. The architectural historian and interior designer James Lees-Milne wrote in his diary: "It was wicked to hang Ribbentrop, who was never a criminal. The man who deserved hanging was Harold Macmillan for sentencing all those Poles and Russians who were sent back after the war". The novelist Robert Graves publicly stated: "Harold Macmillan, he's a murderer you know".


title: Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II

text: There was a political edge to the attacks on Macmillan, who represented the left-wing of the Conservative Party, the so-called "one nation conservatism". The "one nation conservatives" such as Macmillan were often disparaged as the "wets" by the so-called "drys" who represented the right-wing of the Conservative Party. In November 1984, Macmillan gave a much publicised speech in which he called the privatisation plans of the Thatcher government “selling off the family silver”, which made him into a hate figure for the "dry" Conservatives. Additionally, many people on the right-wing of the Conservative Party were passionately opposed to British membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) as the European Union (EU) was then called. Through Britain did not join the EEC until 1973, it was Macmillan who as a prime minister first applied to have Britain join the EEC in July 1961, which was ended in January 1963 when President de Gaulle of France vetoed the British application. For many people on the British right, Macmillan is viewed as something alike to a traitor because of the 1961 application to join the EEC. In 1986, the Federation of Conservative Students in their magazine published a cover story with a photo of Macmillan from 1945 with the question "Guilty of War Crimes?" The question was rhetorical as the article accepted Tolstoy's charges against Macmillan and sought to link his "one nation conservatism" with a policy of weakness towards the Soviet Union.”


text: In 1985, a British businessman named Nigel Watts became involved in a lengthy and bitter dispute over an insurance claim for the previous ten years with the Sun Alliance insurance company, whose chairman was Lord Aldington. In 1945, Lord Aldington had served as chief of staff of V Corps that carried out the repatriation. In consultation with Tolstoy, Watts wrote and published a pamphlet accusing Aldington of war crimes for his involvement in repatriating the Cossacks. In 1945, Toby Low (as Aldington then was known) was planning after leaving the Army to enter politics by running as a Conservative candidate for the House of Commons; Tolstoy has suggested several times that Aldington wanted the patronage of Macmillan, a rising star in the Conservative Party, and would do anything that might please Macmillan such as repatriating the Cossacks in accordance with his wishes. In response, Aldington sued Watts for libel, and Tolstoy insisted on being included as a defendant, seeing a chance to promote his cause.


text: In response to "The Minister and the Massacres", the British historian Robert Knight in his 1986 article "Harold Macmillan and the Cossacks: Was There A Klagenfurt Conspiracy?" accused Tolstoy of scholarly misconduct, writing that in May 1945 British policy in Austria was dictated by Operation Beehive, which entitled preparing for a possible war with Yugoslavia and perhaps the Soviet Union. In May 1945, the Trieste crisis almost caused an Anglo-Yugoslav war as Marshal Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia laid claim to the Italian city of Trieste while Britain supported retaining Trieste within Italy. As Yugoslavia was a Soviet ally in 1945, there were very real fears at the time that an Anglo-Yugoslav war could easily escalate into an Anglo-Soviet war. Knight argued that the forced repatriations in Austria undertaken in May 1945 were at least in part an effort to calm down a very tense situation. Knight maintained that the British wanted to clear Austria of all the vast number of prisoners they had taken to free up soldiers now struck guarding the prisoners for a possible war with Yugoslavia and to improve relations by returning peoples who were the enemies of the Yugoslav and Soviet governments. Both the Yugoslav and Soviet governments believed the British were intending to use Axis collaborationist forces such as the Cossack corps against them. To help resolve the raging controversy, Brigadier Anthony Cowgill formed a committee consisting of himself; a former diplomat and "Russia hand" Lord Brimelow, and Christopher Booker, a journalist well known for his conservative views. Cowgill believed that the honour of the British Army had been smeared, but Booker was a supporter of Tolstoy when he joined the committee in 1986.


text: Between 2 October-30 November 1989, the much publicised libel trial of Tolstoy vs. Aldington took place and ended with the jury ruling in the favour of the latter and awarding him £1.5 million. The judgement, which forced Tolstoy into bankruptcy, was widely criticized as excessive and unfair. The way in which the Ministry of Defence supplied Aldington with certain documents that were denied to Tolstoy has been an especially controversial aspect of the trial, and Tolstoy continues to maintain that he was a victim of "the Establishment". Tolstoy retained a loyal set of defenders consisting of the Conservative MP Bernard Braine, the philosopher Roger Scruton, the journalist Chapman Pincher, the writer Nigel Nicolson, Lord Cranborne and from farther afield Solzhenitsyn, who was living in exile in the United States at the time. The Tolstoy vs. Aldington case attracted much publicity as the British journalist Hugo de Burgh wrote: "From 1989 to 1993 a historical investigation became news in tabloid and broadsheet media alike as argument raged over the merits of combatants in a struggle over who might have done what over a few days in 1945. The case of "the Cossacks" has been perhaps the single most prominent example of historical investigation to be turned into journalism, not only in acres of newsprint devoted to the story and based upon several books on the subject, but also in a programme in the BBC historical series, "Timewatch"".


text: After four years of investigation, in October 1990 the Cowgill committee published its report, "The Repatriations from Austria in 1945" whose conclusions largely echoed those reached by Knight in 1986 that British policy in Austria was largely governed by preparations for a possible war with Yugoslavia and perhaps the Soviet Union as well. About Tolstoy's allegations that Macmillan was a major war criminal, the Cowgill committee concluded that Macmillan's role in the repatriations was very small and largely dictated by military considerations. During its investigation, the Cowgill committee found copies of British documents that were not available in the Public Record Office among the personal papers of Alexander Comstock Kirk, a gay American diplomat who donated all of his personal papers from his death to the National Archives in Washington. In a column published in the "Sunday Times" on 21 October 1990, Robert Harris accused the Cowgill committee of a "whitewash", and maintained that Tolstoy's claims that Britain had willfully sent thousands of people to their deaths in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia was still correct. Cowgill sued Harris and the "Times" for libel and the case was settled out of court with the "Times" agreeing to donate to a charity of Cowgill's choice, in this case the Army Benevolent Fund. By contrast, the journalist Daniel Johnson wrote on 19 October 1990: "As Cowgill shows, Macmillan was telling the truth; that he had merely advised officers on the ground that Allied policy under the Yalta agreement was to hand back the Cossacks and he had, like everybody else, had been unaware that a large number of them were Russian emigres."


text: In 1992, Sir Carol Mather, a veteran turned Conservative MP wrote in his memoirs "Aftermath of War: Everyone Must Go Home" that the overwhelming feeling shared by himself and other British Army officers in Austria in 1945 was that the Cossacks had willingly fought for Nazi Germany and had committed terrible atrocities against Italian civilians while fighting against Italian partisans in 1944–1945, meaning no-one had any sympathy for them. By contrast, Major Harold Lunghi who served as part of the British Military Mission in Moscow during World War Two and was closely involved in the talks to repatriate British POWs taken prisoner by the Germans who had liberated by the Red Army, remained highly critical of the decision to repatriate the Cossacks. Lunghi who worked closely with the "very ruthless" General Filipp Golikov recalled in an interview on 19 March 2009: "In Moscow, as among most people who had knowledge and experience of Russia, we were appalled to learn rather late in the day that we were forcibly returning White Russians and others who did not hold Soviet citizenship to the Soviet Union. It was all the more misguided because the Soviet side at first did not lay any claim to them. As far as I recall, Golikov did not initially refer to them at all. On the contrary, the Soviet side at first said and wrote that their concern was "Soviet citizens". We knew very well what his, that is, Stalin's priority and why. The Cossacks and the others were a late icing on the cake for Stalin"."


text: In 1997, Booker published his book "A Looking Glass Tragedy", in which he wrote: "there was almost no part of the story which we found to be free from serious error, even to the point where atrocities and massacres described at length were found not to have taken place at all. Even the general belief that most of the Cossacks had died after their return to the Soviet Union turned out to be a wild exaggeration". In a review of "A Looking Glass Tragedy", the British historian Alistair Horne alleged that four of the six massacres of Cossacks by the NKVD described by Tolstoy never took place and: "Of the Cossacks repatriated to Russia, few were actually killed; horrendous as their privations were, the vast majority survived the Gulag." Horne argued that the "absurd" sum awarded to Aldington had made Tolstoy into a "national martyr", and felt that the case showed a need for reforming English libel law. Booker described the British media as suffering from a "Cleverdick Culture", accusing most journalists of being overtly motivated by the need to increase sales in a very competitive business via sensationalistic stories intended to promote public outrage and of being excessively credulous, especially about topics in which the journalists knew little, thus leading journalists to accept the Tolstoy thesis uncritically. Booker noted that the BBC produced nine television or radio documentaries that largely accepted Tolstoy's allegations at face value, which he saw as an example of the "Cleverdick Culture". By contrast, Ian Mitchell in his 1997 book "The Cost of a Reputation: Aldington versus Tolstoy : the Causes, Course and Consequences of the Notorious Libel Case" argued that there had been an "Establishment" conspiracy against Tolstoy, claiming that the Foreign Office and the Defence ministry had deprived Tolstoy of documents that had been helpful to him at this trial. "The Cost of a Reputation" was a book privately printed and paid for by Lord Portsmouth, an admirer of Tolstoy.


text: The British historian Edwyn Morris in his 2008 essay "The Repatriation of the Cossacks from Austria in 1945" argued that for Churchill a major concern in 1945 was securing the return of all the British POWs in German POW camps who had fallen into Soviet hands as the Red Army advanced into Germany in 1944-45 and British policies on repatriation on people to the Soviet Union was dictated by the fear that Stalin might hold the British POWs as hostages. Morris argued that Churchill had a well founded belief that if the British granted asylum to the Cossacks, then the Soviets would not return the British POWs. Under the Yalta agreement, the Soviets were to repatriate American and British POWs that came into Red Army hands in exchange for the American and British governments were to repatriate people from the Soviet Union who fell into their hands. Morris argued that if Britain broke the terms of the Yalta Agreement by granting asylum to the Cossacks, then the Soviet Union might likewise break the terms of the Yalta agreement and refuse to repatriate the hundreds of thousands of British POWs whom the Germans had concentrated in POW camps in eastern Germany (it was German policy to build POW camps in eastern Germany as it made it more difficult for POWs who escaped to reach western Europe). Morris also maintained that since the Cossacks had fought for Germany, it was unreasonable to expect Churchill to sacrifice thousands of British POWs just to save them. As it was, the British POWs in Soviet hands were returned to the United Kingdom "humanely and expeditiously".


text: The British historian D.R. Thorpe in his 2010 biography "Supermac" came close to accusing Tolstoy of scholarly misconduct, stating that the "White Russians" that Macmillan mentioned in his diary in 1945 were not the Cossacks as Tolstoy claimed, but rather the Russian Protective Corps, a collaborationist unit that fought for Nazi Germany whose men were either Russian emigres living in Yugoslavia or the sons of these emigres. Thorpe wrote that strictly speaking the term "White Russian" described any Russian who fought on the White side in the Russian Civil War or those anti-Communist Russians who went into exile, but in British official circles in World War Two and in the British Army the term "White Russian" was used indiscriminately to describe any anti-Communist person from the territory of the modern Soviet Union, regardless if they were Russian or not. Thus, the British called the Vlasov Army "White Russians" even through General Andrei Vlasov and his men were all former Red Army POWs who had decided to fight for Germany. Thorpe argued that this blanket use of the term "White Russian" together with a lack of qualified officers who could speak Russian ensured that the British in 1945 did not make much effort to distinguish between those Cossacks living in the Soviet Union who had volunteered to fight for Germany vs. those Cossacks living in exile who had volunteered to fight for Germany. Thorpe further argued that Tolstoy seemed unaware of the way the British used the term "White Russian" in World War Two and as he uses the term "White Russian" in the more limited sense, he assumes that the British were consciously repatriating people whom they knew were not Soviet citizens.


text: William Dritschilo described the events at Lienz in "Lienz Cossacks", his novelization of the Cossack experience of the 20th century.


text: In Lienz, Austria, there is an 18-gravestone cemetery commemorating the "Tragedy of the Drau". Many of the gravestones mark mass graves holding unknown numbers.


title: Ron Wyatt

text: Ronald Eldon Wyatt (June 2, 1933 – August 4, 1999) was an American nurse anesthetist noted for advocating the Durupınar site in Turkey as the location of Noah's Ark's landing place, along with almost 100 other alleged biblically-related discoveries.


title: Ron Wyatt

text: Wyatt's claimed discoveries have been criticized by scientists, historians, biblical scholars, as well as some creationists, and are not considered credible by professional archaeologists and biblical scholars.


title: Ron Wyatt

text: Wyatt was working as a nurse anesthetist in a hospital in Madison, Tennessee, when in 1960, he saw a picture in "Life" of the Durupınar site, a boat-like shape on a mountain near Mount Ararat. The resulting widespread speculation in evangelical Christian circles that this might be Noah's Ark started Wyatt on his career as an amateur archaeologist. From 1977 until his death in 1999 he made over one hundred trips to the Middle East, his interests widening to take in a wide variety of references from the Old and New Testaments. By the time of his death in 1999, Wyatt claimed to have discovered several sites and artifacts related to the Bible and biblical archaeology.


title: Ron Wyatt

text: Wyatt died on August 4, 1999, aged 66, in Baptist Central Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, following cancer. His interment was in Columbia's Polk Memorial Park Cemetery.


title: Ron Wyatt

text: Following Wyatt's death, a split developed between the official Wyatt Archaeological Research (WAR) organization, which he founded, and the independent ministries and interested individuals that had previously cooperated with WAR. WAR claims to be the sole owner of all Wyatt's photographs, newsletters, and other intellectual property. Other individuals who had known and worked with Wyatt established independent ministries and websites with the purpose of promoting Wyatt's discoveries outside the framework set by WAR.


title: Ron Wyatt

text: The Council of the Garden Tomb Association (London) totally refute the claim of Wyatt to have discovered the original Ark of the Covenant or any other biblical artifacts within the boundaries of the area known as the Garden Tomb Jerusalem. Though Wyatt was allowed to dig within this privately owned garden on a number of occasions (the last occasion being the summer of 1991) staff members of the Association observed his progress and entered his excavated shaft. As far as we are aware nothing was ever discovered to support his claims nor have we seen any evidence of biblical artifacts or temple treasures.


title: Ron Wyatt

text: Archaeologist Joe Zias of Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has stated that "Ron Wyatt is neither an archaeologist nor has he ever carried out a legally licensed excavation in Israel or Jerusalem. In order to excavate one must have at least a BA in archaeology which he does not possess despite his claims to the contrary. ... [His claims] fall into the category of trash which one finds in tabloids such as the "National Enquirer", "Sun" etc."


title: Ron Wyatt

text: Wyatt's official organization, Wyatt Archaeological Research (WAR), claims that the IAA have always been aware of the excavations and issued "verbal permits" for most of them and official permits to all WAR excavations since 2002. Nevertheless, the only evidence of WAR involvement in a legitimate excavation sanctioned by the IAA relates to WAR part-funding of a 2005 dig.


title: Ron Wyatt

text: Some Evangelicals have also been critical of Wyatt's claims: Answers in Genesis called Wyatt's claims "fraudulent", and David Merling, a Seventh-day Adventist professor of archaeology addressed the issues of Wyatt's Noah's Ark and anchor stones with the following:


title: Ron Wyatt

text: While the Durupinar site is about the right length for Noah's ark, [it is]... too wide to be Noah's ark. Wyatt has claimed that the "boat-shapedness" of this formation can only be explained by its being Noah's ark, but both Shea and Morris have offered other plausible explanations. Likewise, Wyatt has argued that the standing stones he has found are anchors, while Terian is aware of similar stones outside the Durupinar site area that were pagan cultic stones later converted by Christians for Christian purposes.


title: Woollim Entertainment

text: The label is home to artists such as Golden Child, Rocket Punch, Drippin, and Kwon Eun-bi. It has previously handled artists Epik High, Infinite, Lovelyz, Nell and actor Kim Min-seok.


title: Woollim Entertainment

text: In August 2013, Woollim Entertainment merged with SM Entertainment's subsidiary SM Culture & Contents (SM C&C) to form "Woollim Label", an independent record label whose music would be different from SM Entertainment's sounds with their own color of music and an eclectic lineup of artists.


title: Woollim Entertainment

text: On March 21, 2016, SM C&C announced that it decided to separate its video content business from its music content business. SM C&C established Woollim Entertainment (Woollim Entertainment Co., Ltd) to handle its music content business, with SM C&C owning all stocks of the company. The partition came into effect on June 8, 2016.


title: Woollim Entertainment

text: On November 1, 2021, Woollim Entertainment announced 7 out of 8 members of Lovelyz contract expired on November 16. Among the members, only Baby Soul, now using her real name Lee Su-jeong, has re-signed with the company, while the remaining members did not re-sign.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: The Sinai insurgency is an ongoing insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, that was commenced by Islamist militants against Egyptian security forces, which have also included attacks on civilians. The insurgency began during the Egyptian Crisis, during which the longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in the Egyptian revolution of 2011.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: The Sinai insurgency initially consisted of militants, largely composed of local Bedouin tribesmen, who exploited the chaotic situation in Egypt and weakened central authority to launch a series of attacks on government forces in Sinai, later on, militants of other nationalities also joined extremist groups in Sinai like: Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis and Libyans. In 2014, elements of the Ansar Bait al-Maqdis group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) and proclaimed themselves Sinai Province, and a part of ISIL. Security officials say militants based in Libya have established ties with the Sinai Province group and have blamed the porous border and ongoing civil war for the increase in sophisticated weapons available to the Islamist groups.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Egyptian authorities have attempted to restore their presence in the Sinai through both political and military measures. Egypt launched two military operations, known as Operation Eagle in mid-2011 and then Operation Sinai in mid-2012. In May 2013, following an abduction of Egyptian officers, violence in the Sinai surged once again. Following the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état, which resulted in the ousting of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, "unprecedented clashes" have occurred.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: The fallout suffered by the locals as a result of the insurgency in Sinai ranges from militant operations and the state of insecurity to extensive military operations and the demolishing of hundreds of homes and evacuating thousands of residents as Egyptian troops pressed on to build a buffer zone meant to halt the smuggling of weapons and militants from and to the Gaza strip. A report, compiled by a delegation from the state-funded National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), stated that most of the displaced families share the same grievances of palpable government negligence, unavailability of nearby schools for their sons and the lack of health services. Since the start of the conflict, dozens of civilians were killed either in military operations or kidnapped and then beheaded by militants. In November 2017, more than 300 Sufist worshippers were killed and over 100 injured in a terrorist attack on a mosque west of the city of Al-Arish.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Sufism was previously dominant in the region before militant jihadi ideas began to take hold. The Sinai Peninsula has long been known for its lawlessness, historically, it has served as a route for the smuggling of weapons and supplies. Security provisions in the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979 have mandated a diminished security presence in the area, enabling militants to operate with a freer hand. Moreover, the limited government-directed investment and development in Sinai has discriminated against the local Bedouin population, a population that values tribal allegiance over all else. The combination of Sinai's harsh terrain and its lack of resources have kept the area poor and hence, it is ripe for militancy.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Following the January 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak's regime, the country became increasingly destabilized, creating a security vacuum in the Sinai Peninsula. Radical Islamic elements in Sinai exploited the opportunity, using the region's unique environment, they launched several waves of attacks against Egyptian military and commercial facilities.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: According to "The Economist", the conflict also involves local armed Bedouins "who have long-standing grievances against the central government in Cairo" and that "they are barred from joining the army or police; they find it hard to get jobs in tourism; and they complain that many of their lands have been taken from them".


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Since the 2011 uprising against the Mubarak regime in Egypt, there has been increasing instability in the Sinai Peninsula. In addition, the collapse of the Libyan regime increased the quantity and sophistication of weapons being smuggled into the area. The situation provided local Bedouin with an opportunity to assert their authority, leading to clashes with Egyptian security forces, but the cause of violence soon transitioned to salafi jihadism. Hard-line militant Muslims used Sinai as a launch-point for attacks against Israel and turned on the Egyptian state, focusing on Egypt's security establishment and the Sinai's Arab Gas Pipeline.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In August 2011, Egypt launched Operation Eagle in an effort to restore law and order, driving Islamist insurgents and criminal gangs out of North Sinai's urban centers, and to attempt to sever the link between militant groups in the Sinai and Gaza by augmenting its control over the Gaza border crossing.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: The operation had limited success, and a week into the operation, Salafi jihadists carried out the biggest cross-border attack on Israel in the post-Mubarak period.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 5 August 2012, an attack on the Rafah barracks shook the Egyptian military and population. Only a month into his term, President Mohamed Morsi sacked the longstanding defence minister and promoted General al Sisi in his place. Operation Sinai was launched, aimed at eliminating armed Islamist groups, protecting the Suez Canal, and destroying the tunnel network connecting the Sinai with the Gaza Strip. During the operation, 32 militants and suspects were killed and 38 arrested, while 2 civilians were killed by early September 2012.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Since the July 2013 coup against President Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, Egyptian military and security services in particular were targeted by Sinai-based Islamist groups. In an increase in violence, security forces came under near daily attack throughout July to August 2013.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In 2013, the new authorities adopted a more aggressive strategy, leading to mass arrests and harsh security measures.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Over the few months leading to 2014, the Egyptian army gained the upper hand in the battle against militias that had found safe haven in the peninsula. After isolating and largely clearing the populated northeastern Sinai, the army put many militant factions on the defensive, most notably Ansar Bait al-Maqdis. However, one thousand armed militiamen were still sheltering in the main stronghold in Jabal Halal, as well as Jabal Amer area.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In November 2014, the situation in the Sinai was thrust into the spotlight with the deadliest attack on the security forces since 2011, and the group responsible Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis pledging allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forming the Sinai Province.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In the wake of the attack on the security forces, the government declared state of emergency, imposing a curfew and establish a buffer zone in the Sinai's border area with Gaza.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In May 2013, a number of Egyptian Army police officers were taken hostage by armed tribesmen in the Sinai Peninsula, with videos released on the internet with them begging for their lives. As a response, Egypt's government built up security forces in northern Sinai as part of an effort to secure the release of six policemen and a border guard kidnapped by suspected militants. On 20–21 May, Egyptian troops and police, backed by helicopter gunships, conducted a sweep through a number of villages in northern Sinai, along the border with Israel. The officials said the forces came under fire from gunmen in vehicles, triggering the clashes. The clashes left one gunman dead by 21 May. The hostages were released on 22 May after talks between the captors and Bedouins. One suspect in the kidnapping was arrested on 30 May 2013.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: After Morsi's ouster on 3 July by Sisi, there was an increase in violence by armed Bedouin and Islamists. Attacks on security forces took place almost daily — leading many to link the militants there to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Morsi hails.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In response, Egypt launched a major military operation in Sinai against the militants, bringing in two additional battalions.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In the two weeks following 3 July, 39 terrorist attacks occurred in North Sinai. In the resulting clashes between armed groups and security forces, 52 gunmen and civilians and six security personnel died. On 15 July, a bus transporting workers to the army-operated Al-Arish Cement Company was attacked leaving five killed and 15 wounded, the highest civilian casualties. On 16 July, attacks resulted in some of the most intense army engagement, concentrated at Al-Masa'id, Al-Joura, and the Central Security camp at Al-Ahrash.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Security operations have been largely confined to the 40-kilometre area between Al-Arish and Sheikh Zuweid, extending northward toward Rafah along the border with Israel and up to the Karen Abu Salem crossing. Fighting intensified between the gunmen and the joint army-police forces at night. The frequency of attacks varied from two to five in a single day. In addition, targets expanded from fixed security checkpoints to mobile patrols. In most operations, the gunmen used four-wheel drive vehicles and combinations of light and heavy weaponry. However, in three attacks RPG-7 launchers were used, most likely smuggled from Libya. These grenades are capable of penetrating armoured vehicles and are generally fired at the doors.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 27 July, an operation dubbed "Desert Storm" was launched by the Egyptian army in North Sinai Governorate to last for 48 hours. Two of Egypt's field armies, as well as the country's air force and navy reportedly took part in the large-scale operation. The military were said to have blocked all the roads, bridges and tunnels leading from Northern Sinai to other provinces.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: A bomb was placed at a hotel frequented by security officials on 2 August 2013, though it caused no injuries. A security source told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm that a majority of "terrorists" had been arrested as of 3 August 2013. 2 mausoleums were bombed on 4 August 2013, though no injuries resulted.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Twenty-five Egyptian policemen died in an attack in the northern region of Sinai, on 18 August. After militants forced two mini-buses carrying off-duty policemen to stop, ordered the policemen out and forced them to lie on the ground before shooting them. The Egyptian military arrested eleven people, including five Hamas members, three local residents and three foreign nationals, for their alleged involvement in the killings. The person who committed the murders confessed on 1 September 2013.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Military spokesperson Ahmed Ali said that Egyptian security forces operations in Sinai, from 5 July to 23 August, resulted in 78 suspected militants killed, including 32 foreigners; 116 people injured; and 203 people arrested, including 48 foreigners, for their alleged involvement in attacks on security checkpoints in the peninsula. Additionally 343 tunnels on the border with Gaza at Rafah were destroyed.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 7 September, the Egyptian army launched a new operation in the region involving tanks and at least six Apache helicopters. The army jammed communications to thwart militant coordination. The army combed through areas near the Gaza Strip, including locations used by militants suspected in the killing and abduction of Egyptian soldiers over the past year. In the three days of operations, after 7 September, one officer, two soldiers and 29 militants were killed, and 39 militants arrested.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 11 September, a suicide bomber targeted Egyptian military intelligence headquarters in Rafah, bringing down the structure, at the same time a car bomb had rammed an army checkpoint. In the simultaneous attack at least nine soldiers were killed.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 24 December 16 were killed and over 134 injured in a huge bomb which hit the Daqahliya Security Directorate in Mansoura, in the worst attack on a government site since the ouster of Morsi in July. Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, a Sinai-based group, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group deemed Egyptian troops infidels because they answer to a "secular government", warning them to desert or face death.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 26 January, militants shot down an army Mi-17 helicopter in North Sinai, killing all five of its crew members. The weapon the insurgents used was an infrared-homing, surface-to-air missile from the Russian-made Igla family. This was the first time in Egyptian history that an armed nonstate actor dropped a state's military helicopter by a missile. Ansar Bait al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for this attack as well as series of escalating attacks on police and soldiers.<ref name="NYT-26/01/14"></ref> Earlier that morning masked men in an SUV attacked a bus carrying soldiers in Sinai, killing at least three and injuring at least 11.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 3 February, in what was described as the biggest operation in the Egyptian army's ongoing offensive against militants in the Sinai, 30 suspected militants were killed and another 15 injured in a series of airstrikes and another 16 were arrested.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 16 February 2014, a bomb exploded on or under a tour bus of a South Korean church group in the Egyptian city of Taba, which borders the Gulf of Aqaba and Eilat, Israel. The bombing killed 4 people – 3 South Koreans and the Egyptian bus driver – and injured 17 others. According to "The New York Times", the bombing could "offer worrying new evidence that militants who have been attacking Egypt's security forces for months were broadening their campaign against civilians."


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 24 October 2014, 33 army and police soldiers were killed in two separate attacks in North Sinai. The attack was the largest ever since the start of the war on terror in Sinai. As a result of the attack, president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared a state of emergency in the governorate after meeting with the National Defence Council for several hours. The state of emergency was to last for three months and to include a daily curfew from 5pm to 7am until further notice.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 10 November 2014, Ansar Bait al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forming the Sinai Province group with a confusingly similar name to two Egyptian regional governments.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 14 November 2014, ISIL published a video online that included footage of the group carrying out the October 2014 Sinai attacks.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 12 January 2015, Sinai Province kidnapped a police officer while traveling in North Sinai and took him to an unknown location. On the following day on 13 January 2015, Egyptian military spokesperson announced the discovery of the dead body of the officer after launching a search operation. He also said that during the operation 10 militants were killed, while two others were arrested.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 26 January 2015, Sinai Province published a video online that included the kidnapping and execution of the police officer kidnapped on 12 January.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 29 January 2015, militants from the Sinai Province militant group launched a series of attacks on army and police bases in Arish using car bombs and mortars. The attacks, which occurred in more than six different locations, resulted in 44 confirmed deaths including army personnel and civilians.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: It was reported that on 6 February 2015 Egyptian security forces attacked the Sinai Province group, killing 47 Islamic militants in Northern Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 10 March 2015, a suicide attack on a police barracks using a water tanker was stopped after security forces opened fire on the water tanker causing it to explode before it could get into the barracks. One civilian near the scene was killed and two other civilians alongside 30 policemen were wounded in the blast.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 2 April 2015, an attack on an army checkpoint resulted in the death of 15 soldiers, 2 civilians and 15 attackers. As a response to the attack, the Egyptian army launched an operation the following day allegedly killing 100 militants.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 8 April 2015, eleven civilians were killed in Sheikh Zuweid when an unidentified rocket-propelled grenade hit their homes. A roadside bomb killed two officers in the same city.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 12 April 2015, 6 soldiers were killed when their armoured vehicle was bombed in North Sinai. On the same day, a separate attack on a police station in Arish resulted in the death of 5 policemen and 1 civilian. 40 were also injured, both policemen and civilians. The attack on the station was carried out by a suicide-bomber using a bomb-laden van, on which the police forces opened fire, causing a large explosion which reportedly created a large crater and shattered house windows near the police station. Militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for the attacks.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 27 April 2015, members from Al-Tarabin tribe in North Sinai launched an attack on Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis positions in Rafah. The attack came after Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis gunmen fatally shot a member of Al-Tarabin tribe in Berth village in southern Rafah, North Sinai, after he refused to take their warning statements ordering them not to deal with the Egyptian military.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 16 May 2015, three Egyptian judges and their driver were killed, and a fourth judge was severely wounded when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in North Sinai. The attack came hours after a Cairo court issued a preliminary death sentence against former president Mohamed Morsi and 105 other defendants on a range of charges, including murder.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 9 June 2015, militants fired rockets at the direction of an airport in Sinai used by the multinational peacekeeping forces. There were no casualties reported. ISIL affiliate Sinai Province claimed responsibility for the attack on several Twitter accounts linked to it.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 1 July 2015, ISIL Sinai Province militants launched one of the largest-scale battles seen in the Sinai Peninsula since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and the largest attack since the insurgency begun in 2011, on multiple Egyptian army checkpoints in the Sinai Peninsula, killing 21 soldiers and wounding 9. However, unknown Egyptian security and medical officials reported that up to 64 soldiers had been killed in the attacks. The attack also targeted Sheikh Zuweid police station. Reinforcements from the Second Army Zone stationed in Ismailia have been deployed to Sheikh Zuweid, including Apache helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. Militants have reportedly killed several civilians who refused to allow them onto their rooftops to target security forces. An army statement claimed the killing of more than 100 militants from the attacking force. The militant death toll increased in the following days, due to Egyptian military operations in the region, reaching 241 killed.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 4 July 2015, a shell bomb struck a house in Sheikh Zuweid, killing a woman and her two children, the shell also seriously wounded another woman and a teenage girl. On the same day, a roadside bomb targeting army and police vehicles killed a five-year-old child in Rafah town that borders the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Three other children and a woman were also wounded in the blast.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 15 July 2015, twenty militants were killed as security forces repelled an attack on a security checkpoint in North Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 16 July 2015, Sinai Province militants attacked an Egyptian navy patrol ship near the border with Israel and the Gaza Strip. The patrol ship was hit by a guided missile. The Egyptian military confirmed the incident and said in a statement that there are no fatalities among the vessel's crew. Huge fireball and then black heavy smoke over the sea were seen at the scene, and witnesses reported seeing other navy vessels rescuing the crew. The attack is considered the first maritime attack of ISIL and its allied militant groups.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 23 July 2015, an officer and three soldiers were killed and three others were wounded when an improvised roadside bomb hit their armoured vehicle in a village near the town of Rafah.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 24 July 2015, the Egyptian army said it has killed 12 terrorists and destroyed two warehouses storing explosive materials.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 31 July 2015, the Egyptian military bombed areas of the North Sinai towns of al-Arish and Sheikh Zuweid, killing 20 suspected militants.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 1 August 2015, Egyptian army forces surrounded the home of a leading figure of the Sinai-based militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, in the town of Sheikh Zuweid, before shooting him dead.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 3 September 2015, four American and two Fijian Multinational Force and Observers troops were wounded in an attack involving two IEDs.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 8 September 2015, the Egyptian military launched a major operation code-named "The Martyr's Right". The operation is the largest and most comprehensive operation aimed at rooting out and killing terrorists since July's immediate response to militant attacks. The operation targeted sites in Rafah, Arish, and Sheikh Zuweid, all towns in the northern areas of the peninsula.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 13 September 2015, a Fijian soldier attached to the Multinational Force and Observers was wounded by small arms fire.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 31 October 2015, a Russian passenger jet disintegrated above the northern Sinai, killing all 224 aboard. The Islamic State's Sinai Province claimed responsibility for the incident. Russian, Egyptian, and western investigators concluded that the plane was brought down by a bomb planted at Sharm Al Sheikh Airport. It was the deadliest air disaster both in the history of Russian aviation and within Egyptian territory at the time.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Insurgent attacks increased in early 2016, nearly doubling between the last quarter of 2015 and the second quarter of 2016. However, according to "The Times of Israel", the numbers of attacks and casualties was declining by August 2016.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In May, Egyptian security forces launched an air attack on Jabal Halal, a region with an extensive cave system that was a major insurgent stronghold. According to the Egyptian military, 88 militants were killed and many supply caches were destroyed.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Then, on 4 August, the army claimed to have killed the leader of Sinai Province, Abu Duaa al-Ansari. Independent sources were unable to verify this claim, or even the existence of al-Ansari. Previous reports had described Abu Osama al-Masri as the leader.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 14 October a total 12 soldiers and 15 militants were killed. On 17 October several clashes in North Sinai left 3 soldiers and 18 insurgents dead. On 30 October a military operation in North Sinai left 4 soldiers and 6 insurgents dead.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 5 November Egyptian soldiers killed at least 11 terrorists. On 10 November army soldiers killed at least 6 insurgents.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 9 January 2017, an attack by several gunmen and a truck bomb on a police checkpoint in El-Arish causing at least 13 deaths and 22 injuries, according to official sources. One of the attackers, drove a stolen rubbish truck loaded with explosive at the security checkpoint, as gunmen opened fire on police forces.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In February 2017, ISIS produced a video calling for attacks against Christians. In April, ISIS attacked several churches in Egypt Known as Palm Sunday church bombings. The attacks killed over 40 people.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In July, a militant raid on an army checkpoint resulted in the deaths of at least 23 soldiers. The checkpoint was looted for weapons and ammunition before the attackers fled the scene. Later that month an attack targeting police killed 5 officers and wounded 11 in the city of el-Arish. A later roadside bomb south of the city wounded a further 6 officers. The attacks came the same day officials claimed the Egyptian Air Force had killed at least 30 militants in strikes on a gathering.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In September, officers were again attacked in el-Arish, with 18 killed and 7 wounded in an assault involving roadside bombs and small arms fire.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 24 November 2017, the Sufi al-Rawda mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed, North Sinai Governorate, Egypt was attacked by around forty gunmen during Friday prayers. The gun and bomb attack killed at least 235 people and injured more than 120, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in Egyptian history and the second deadliest attack in 2017, after the 14 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings. Other reports of the attack assert that over 300 deaths occurred.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 19 December 2017, El Arish International Airport was attacked in an attempt to assassinate the Minister of Interior Magdi Abdel-Ghaffar and the minister of defense Sedki Sobhy. The assassination attempt failed and one officer was killed and two were injured. ISIS used kornet anti-tank missile in the attack. Next day a new clash started near the airport where 5 ISIS militants were killed and an army captain was killed.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 9 February 2018, Col. Tamer el-Refai, the military's spokesman, announced in a statement on state-run television, titled "Communique 1 from the General Command of the Armed Forces", the launching of Comprehensive Operation – Sinai 2018.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 8 October 2018, Egyptian military declared in an operation they have killed 52 Islamist militants. Three Egyptian soldiers were also killed.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In May 2019, Human Rights Watch reported that throughout the operations in Sinai the "Egyptian military and police have carried out systematic and widespread arbitrary arrests—including of children—enforced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings, collective punishment, and forced evictions", based on interviews with dozens of Sinai residents.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In November 2019, Egyptian forces killed 83 suspected fighters in operations in central and North Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: From 2018 to 2020, 840 militants were killed by Egyptian Security Forces who lost 67 soldiers in return. In March 2020, Egyptian forces managed to kill Abu Fares Al-Ansari, a commander of Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, in Al Ajra' area south of Rafah.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 1 May 2020, ISIL claimed responsibility via its Amaq News Agency for a bombing that killed and wounded several Egyptian Army personnel near the city of Bir al-Abd in North Sinai Governorate. In retaliation, Egyptian police managed to kill 18 extremist militants in a raid in northern Sinai Peninsula.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 1 January 2021, a roadside bomb killed two members of Egypt's security forces and wounded five others near Bir al-Abd in the northern Sinai Peninsula.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 9 February 2021, local sources reported that six fighters of the tribal militias supporting the Egyptian regime had been killed and another fighter had been abducted in central Sinai in an ISIS ambush.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 22 February 2021, ISIS operatives fired at an Egyptian army patrol south of Sheikh Zuweid, near a roadblock. One soldier was killed and two others were wounded.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 27 February 2021, IS operatives exploded an IED targeting an Egyptian foot patrol. The explosion killed 3 Egyptian soldiers including a colonel, Ahmad Abdel Mohsen. One other soldier was also wounded.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 11 March 2021, IS claimed responsibility for killing a father and his son because they were 'collaborating' with Egyptian authorities.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In March 2021, Human Rights Watch accused the Egyptian armed forces of violating international human rights law and committing war crimes by demolishing more than 12,300 residential and commercial buildings and 6,000 hectares of farmland since 2013 in North Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 22 March 2021, The Egyptian forces managed to eliminate Saleem Al-Hamadiin, a veteran commander of ISIS, in a joint operation with the local tribes in the village of Al-Barth, south of Rafah.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 5 April 2021, ISIL released photos showing the execution of an alleged spy, who was apparently working for the Egyptian authorities.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 17 April, ISIS released footage of them executing a Coptic Christian and 2 other tribal fighters. They issued the execution footage as a 'warning to the Christians of Egypt'. In the same release, they also released videos of sniping and IED attacks and an attack on Egyptian tribal forces, leaving at least 4 tribesmen dead.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 1 May, ISIS operatives broke into houses in Al-Amal, south of Al-Arish, searching for suspected collaborators with the Egyptian army. Being unable to find them, they executed three of their relatives


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 30 May, Colonel Khaled Al-Arian was killed by an ISIS sniper attack on an Egyptian army patrol in Sheikh Zuweid, in northern Sinai. IS also released photos of them executing two alleged 'collaborators', supposedly working with the Egyptian army.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 4 June, an Egyptian officer was killed in Sinai: Ahmad Jum'ah, an intelligence officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel, was killed in the detonation of an IED in northern Sinai. The attack was blamed on ISIS.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 14 June, a group of ISIS militants including a commander were killed during an Egyptian army raid on a farm in Bir al-Abd.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 31 July, ISIS militants ambushed a group of Egyptian soldiers at their security checkpoint in Sheikh Zuweid, northern Sinai. 5 Egyptian soldiers were killed and 6 more were wounded. 3 ISIS militants were also killed in the shootout.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 1 August, it was reported that 89 extremists were killed in northern Sinai, compared to eight Egyptian soldiers. Meanwhile, 13 tunnel entrances were destroyed at the borders with the Gaza Strip and Israel.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 9 August, an ISIS IED was activated south of Rafah against an Egyptian army vehicle killing Mohammad Abd Motagalli, an Egyptian army colonel.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 12 August, the Egyptian armed forces eliminated 13 terrorists in northern and central Sinai. 9 soldiers were killed and wounded during the exchange of fire.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 25 August 2 Egyptian soldiers were killed by ISIL snipers whilst conducting operations in northern Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 8 May 2022, ten soldiers and one officer are killed during an attack at a checkpoint at a water pumping station in El Qantara,


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In August 2022, videos and photographs were circulated over social media, showing how the army-affiliated militias executed three shackled or wounded men in custody. The executions were extrajudicial. Human Rights Watch called for the Egyptian authorities to immediately open a “transparent and impartial investigation” into the violations.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: According to Reuters, as of 2013, Ansar Bait al-Maqdis was in control of about a third of the villages in Sinai. Now, daily clashes with militants in North Sinai are reported by the army. The insurgency has not spread to south Sinai, where there are tourist hubs. In the northeastern part of the peninsula, checkpoints have often been established by militants as the army lack the power to stop them. The militants have captured and assassinated policemen there.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 24 December 2013, sixteen people were killed and over a hundred people injured in a huge bomb which hit the Daqahliya Security Directorate in Mansoura. Ansar Bait al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for the attack.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 5 August 2014, 5 policemen were killed in an attack on a police car on Matrouh road by armed militants.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 28 November 2014, the militant group Sinai Province claimed responsibility for the killing of 2 army personnel in Cairo and Qaliubiya.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 1 December 2014, Sinai Province claimed responsibility for killing a United States citizen in Egypt's western desert in August 2014.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 21 December 2014, the Egyptian police raided an Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis cell in the Nile Delta killing 5 members.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 26 December 2014, two Ansar Bait al-Maqdis militants were killed in a gunfight in El-Salam City, on the eastern outskirts of Cairo. The Ministry of Interior later identified one of the dead militants as the commander of Ansar Beit El-Maqdis in the Nile Delta.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 11 July 2015, a car-bomb exploded near the Italian consulate in Cairo, killing one person and injuring nine others. None of the Italian staff of the consulate were injured as the establishment was still closed at the time of the explosion. Later, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Out of the approximately 15 main militant groups operating in the Sinai desert, the most dominant and active militant groups have close relations with the Gaza Strip. The Army of Islam, a U.S. designated terrorist organization based in the Gaza Strip, is responsible for training and supplying many militant organizations and jihadist members in Sinai. Mohammed Dormosh, the Army of Islam's leader, is known for his close relationships to the Hamas leadership. The Army of Islam smuggles members into the Gaza Strip for training, then returns them to the Sinai Peninsula to engage in terrorist and jihadist activities.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: The disposition of Egyptian forces in the Sinai peninsula is mandated by the Camp David Accords and it is monitored by the 1,600 foreign troops who make up the Multinational Force and Observers. Egypt is only permitted to station enough military forces to enforce security in the Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In 2011, Egypt sent an additional 2,500 troops and 250 armored personnel, with helicopters as part of Operation Eagle, a mission to provide security during the transition to power from the then-recently fallen Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Operation Eagle was joined by Operation Sinai in 2012, which came in response to a militant attack against an Egyptian border post 5 August that killed 16 border guards. Together, the two operations increased the total troop count by more than 2,500 added 80 vehicles and at least two attack helicopters. Egypt also was allowed to deploy armed fighter jets to El Arish to assist its ground forces in Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Egypt's expanded force structure in Sinai is designed to deny militants sanctuary by bringing more force to bear than the municipal police can provide. Many of the new forces are stationed in the northeast of the Sinai along the Egyptian border with Gaza. They set up roadblocks and checkpoints in an attempt to monitor traffic and counter smuggling on the Sinai Peninsula.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In the October 2014 attacks, the militants in Sinai used suicide truck bombs to breach army roadblocks and strongpoints for the first time, they immediately followed these attacks by launching an infantry attack.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: After the October attacks, the Egyptian military began using armed drones for the first time since the Sinai insurgency began. And as a measure to counter weapon and militant trafficking between Egypt and Gaza strip, the Egyptian government announced the creation of a buffer zone along the Egypt-Gaza border.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Following the attacks on army and police bases in Arish in early 2015, the Egyptian President issued a decree to create a unified military command for the east of the Suez Canal to combat terrorism. Led by General Osama Roshdy Askar, it was to guide counter-terrorism activities of the Second and Third Armies.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 27 April 2015, Egypt's Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab issued a decree ordering the isolation and evacuation of new areas in North Sinai's Rafah city, thus expanding the buffer zone.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: A shift in the militants strategy appeared in the July 2015 clashes. Zack Gold, Middle East analyst, views the battle as a change in strategy from hit and run tactics toward an ISIL-like 'holding' of territory.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: As an effort to limit car-bombs attacks, Egypt's Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab issued a decree banning 4X4 vehicles in army-operations zones in Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Following the mosque attack in November 2017, President el-Sisi vowed to respond with "the utmost force" and Egyptian authorities in the days immediately after the attack the Air Force claimed to have the pursued and destroyed of some of the militants' vehicles and weapons stocks. Airstrikes were also conducted in the neighboring mountains. In February 2018, the Egyptian military conducted major air strikes and land assaults against terrorist positions in Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: The Egyptian government has used the death penalty to punish those convicted of committing terrorist acts in Sinai. On 26 December 2017, Egypt hanged 15 men convicted of killing nine soldiers during an attack on a military checkpoint in 2013.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Extensive smuggling of migrants (mostly from African countries), drugs and contraband from Sinai into Israel, as well as kidnapping of migrants crossing the Sinai en route from Africa to Israel were commonplace in the past, serving as an important source of income for insurgent groups in the Sinai. The crisis in Egypt resulted in a rise in illicit and insurgent activities across the Egypt–Israel border, prompting Israel to construct the Egypt–Israel barrier, completed in 2013. This had the effect of practically eliminating illegal migrant crossing into Israel and significantly reducing cross-border insurgency and drug smuggling.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 16 October 2017, the Islamic State announced that it had fired rockets at Eshkol region in Israel, in response to 'Jewish aircraft' assisting Egyptian security forces.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 23 May 2018, the Islamic State released a video claiming that Israeli aircraft struck civilian homes in the Sinai and showed Hebrew labels on munitions purportedly found in aftermath of the attack.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: As of 3 February 2018, "The New York Times" wrote that the Israeli Defence Forces had conducted over 100 air strikes in Sinai, which elicited an official denial from the Egyptian military.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In the two years following 2011, Israel approved two Egyptian military increases in the Sinai Peninsula above levels set in the Camp David Accords, which mandates that the Sinai must remain demilitarized, with only enough forces in Sinai to enforce security. Israel did so because it is not in its interest to have unrest in Sinai, whether political protests or militant violence.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: However, in late 2012, concern began to be raised as Egypt began deploying more force and tanks without coordination from Israel. On 21 August, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that it is important for Israel to make sure that the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty is upheld, and not to remain silent as Egyptian military forces enter the Sinai. Concern was raised by Israeli officials over Egyptian failure to notify Israel about the deployment of tanks in the Sinai, which violates the peace treaty. Lieberman said, "We must make sure that every detail is upheld, otherwise we'll find ourselves in a slippery slope as far as the peace treaty is concerned."


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On the same day, Israeli daily "Maariv" reported that Israel sent a message to Egypt via the White House, protesting Egypt's ongoing increase in military presence in the Sinai without coordination from Israel, and telling Egypt that it must remove tanks from the Sinai because their presence violates the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, which states that Sinai Peninsula is to remain demilitarized. The "Maariv" report was echoed by an article in "The New York Times", which stated that Israel was "troubled" by the entry of Egyptian tanks into the northern Sinai Peninsula without coordination with Israel and had asked Egypt to withdraw them. Partly due to Egypt's military deploying tanks in the Sinai Peninsula, Israel is increasingly worried about what has long been their most critical regional relationship. The lack of coordination around their deployment is seen as potentially undermining a peace treaty that has been a cornerstone of Israel's security for decades according to "The New York Times". Israel is also concerned that Egypt may use Operation Eagle to build up its military presence in the Sinai, and leave the tanks and armored carriers in the Sinai while not doing much more than symbolic action to eliminate the terrorist threat.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Israel has not issued a formal complaint, and instead prefers to resolve the issue through quiet contacts, as well as mediation from the U.S., to avoid straining its relationship with Egypt.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 24 August 2012, a senior Egyptian military source said that Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have reached an agreement on the issue of the militarization of the Sinai. "Al Hayat" reported that Sissi phoned Barak and said that Egypt was committed to maintaining the peace treaty with Israel. Sissi also said that the militarization was temporary, and was needed for security and to fight terrorism. However, an Israeli defense official denied that such a conversation took place.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: In late August 2012, Morsi said that the security operations do not threaten anyone, and "there should not be any kind of international or regional concerns at all from the presence of Egyptian security forces". Morsi added that the campaign was in "full respect to international treaties. The Egyptian-Israeli peace deal places limits on Egyptian military deployment in the Sinai. Officials in Israel were concerned about Egypt building up heavy armour in Sinai."


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 8 September 2012, an Israeli official confirmed that coordination exists between Israel and Egypt regarding Operation Eagle. Egyptian Military spokesman Ahmed Mohammed Ali had earlier announced that Egypt has been consulting with Israel regarding its security measures in the Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 2 July 2015, one day after the attacks on 15 Egyptian Army checkpoints, Israel announced that it was giving Egypt a "free hand to operate in northern Sinai against local jihadist groups, voluntarily ignoring an annex to the 1979 Camp David Peace Accords banning the presence of significant Egyptian forces in the area."


title: Sinai insurgency

text: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent condolences to Egypt for the terrorist attacks that rocked that country on 1 July. He further stated that "we are together with Egypt and many other states in the Middle East and the world in the struggle against extreme Islamic terrorism."


title: Sinai insurgency

text: As of 3 February 2018, "The New York Times" had claimed that Israel has conducted over a 100 Air Strikes in Sinai, which has been denied by the Egyptian Military Spokesman Col. Tamer a-Rifai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 8 November 2021, after a meeting between Egyptian and Israeli military commanders in Sinai, Israel agreed to a larger deployment of Egyptian troops near Rafah. The exact level of the troop increase was not immediately announced.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: According to CNN, in a move to increase security in the Sinai, help Morsi, and reassure Israel, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta offered Egypt classified intelligence-sharing capabilities to help Egypt identify military threats in the area, which he discussed during his recent trips to Egypt and Israel. The technology has been widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify vehicles at great distances. The technology may also be used by the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai. The United States is also offering increased intelligence sharing, including satellite imagery and drone flights, as well as cellphone intercepts and other communications among militants suspected of plotting attacks.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 22 August 2012, the State Department urged Egypt to be transparent over Operation Eagle and any security operations in the Sinai. The State Department said that the United States supports Operation Eagle against terrorism, but stressed that Egypt must continue coordination with Israel regarding these operations and military increases in the Sinai, according to the 1979 Camp David Accords. The State Department also called on Egypt to fulfill its obligations under the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and deal strongly with security threats in the Sinai, while ensuring that "lines of communication stay open."


title: Sinai insurgency

text: On 23 August 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr, urged Amr to maintain lines of communication with Israel, and emphasized the importance of being transparent over the militarization of the Sinai.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: The Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai, a 1,650-strong international organization created in 1979 during the Camp David Accords with peacekeeping responsibilities, kept a low profile during the intensification of Operation Eagle in 2012. A representative for the organization said that "we are unable to respond to queries from the media at this time" in response to whether Egypt asked permission to move weaponry into the Sinai, and whether Israel granted it.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: The Egyptian pipeline carrying natural gas to Jordan has been attacked at least 15 times since the start of the uprising in early 2011. The lack of Egyptian gas hit Jordan budget severely (by JOD 1.4 billion or the equivalent of US$2 billion yearly for the past two years) and they are looking for Egypt to compensate for the lost quantities.


title: Sinai insurgency

text: A "Mada Masr" journalist questioned the accuracy of Interior Ministry reports on at least two accusations. CBS journalist Clarissa Ward went undercover into the Sinai and witnessed evidence of a scorched earth policy.


title: Terry (dog)

text: Terry (November 17, 1933 – September 1, 1945) was a female Cairn Terrier performer who appeared in many different movies, most famously as Toto in the film "The Wizard of Oz" (1939). It was her only credited role, though she was credited not as Terry but as Toto. She was owned and trained by Carl Spitz and Gabrielle Quinn.


title: Terry (dog)

text: Terry, born in the midst of the Great Depression, was trained and owned by Carl Spitz. She was the mother of Rommy, another movie Cairn terrier, who appeared in other films including "Reap the Wild Wind" (1942) and "Air Force" (1943). Her first film appearance was in "Ready for Love" (1934) which was released on November 30, 1934, roughly one month before her first major film appearance, with Shirley Temple, in "Bright Eyes" (1934) as Rags.


title: Terry (dog)

text: She did her own stunts, and was seriously injured during the filming of "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), when one of the Winkie guards accidentally stepped on her foot, breaking it. Terry spent two weeks recuperating at Judy Garland's residence, and Garland developed a close attachment to her. Garland offered to buy Terry from Spitz, but he refused to sell her. Terry's $125 per week salary (), was more than that of many human actors in the film, and also more than the average working American at the time. She attended the premiere of "The Wizard of Oz" at Grauman's Chinese Theater; because of the popularity of the film, her name was formally changed to Toto in 1942.


title: Terry (dog)

text: She had 23 total film appearances, three of which were playing in theaters at the same time in the fall of 1939: "The Wizard of Oz", "The Women", and "Bad Little Angel". Among the last ones was "Tortilla Flat" (1942), in which she was reunited with "Oz" director Victor Fleming and Frank Morgan, who played Professor Marvel and the Wizard. Terry's final film role was in "Easy to Look At", released three weeks before her death. Her penultimate film, "Adventures of Rusty", was released posthumously just five days after her death. She was uncredited in both films.


title: Terry (dog)

text: Terry died at age 11 in Hollywood on September 1, 1945, and was buried at Spitz's ranch in Studio City, Los Angeles. The grave was destroyed during the construction of the Ventura Freeway in 1958.


title: Terry (dog)

text: On June 18, 2011, a permanent memorial for Terry was dedicated at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.


title: Swadesh list

text: The Swadesh list ("Swadesh" is pronounced ) is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatedness of those languages. The Swadesh list is named after linguist Morris Swadesh. It is used in lexicostatistics (the quantitative assessment of the genealogical relatedness of languages) and glottochronology (the dating of language divergence). Because there are several different lists, some authors also refer to "Swadesh lists".


title: Swadesh list

text: Morris Swadesh himself created several versions of his list. He started with a list of 215 meanings (falsely introduced as a list of 225 meanings in the paper due to a spelling error), which he reduced to 165 words for the Salish-Spokane-Kalispel language. In 1952, he published a list of 215 meanings, of which he suggested the removal of 16 for being unclear or not universal, with one added to arrive at 200 words. In 1955, he wrote, "The only solution appears to be a drastic weeding out of the list, in the realization that quality is at least as important as quantity. Even the new list has defects, but they are relatively mild and few in number." After minor corrections, the final 100-word list was published posthumously in 1971 and 1972.


title: Swadesh list

text: Other versions of lexicostatistical test lists were published e.g. by Robert Lees (1953), John A. Rea (1958:145f), Dell Hymes (1960:6), E. Cross (1964 with 241 concepts), W. J. Samarin (1967:220f), D. Wilson (1969 with 57 meanings), Lionel Bender (1969), R. L. Oswald (1971), Winfred P. Lehmann (1984:35f), D. Ringe (1992, passim, different versions), Sergei Starostin (1984, passim, different versions), William S-Y. Wang (1994), M. Lohr (2000, 128 meanings in 18 languages). B. Kessler (2002), and many others. The Concepticon, a project hosted at the Cross-Linguistic Linked Data (CLLD) project, collects various concept lists (including classical Swadesh lists) across different linguistic areas and times, currently listing 240 different concept lists.


title: Swadesh list

text: Frequently used and widely available on the internet, is the version by Isidore Dyen (1992, 200 meanings of 95 language variants). Since 2010, a team around Michael Dunn has tried to update and enhance that list.


title: Swadesh list

text: In origin, the words in the Swadesh lists were chosen for their universal, culturally independent availability in as many languages as possible, regardless of their "stability". Nevertheless, the stability of the resulting list of "universal" vocabulary under language change and the potential use of this fact for purposes of glottochronology have been analyzed by numerous authors, including Marisa Lohr 1999, 2000.


title: Swadesh list

text: The Swadesh list was put together by Morris Swadesh on the basis of his intuition. Similar more recent lists, such as the Dolgopolsky list (1964) or the Leipzig–Jakarta list (2009), are based on systematic data from many different languages, but they are not yet as widely known nor as widely used as the Swadesh list.


title: Swadesh list

text: Lexicostatistical test lists are used in lexicostatistics to define subgroupings of languages, and in glottochronology to "provide dates for branching points in the tree". The task of defining (and counting the number) of cognate words in the list is far from trivial, and often is subject to dispute, because cognates do not necessarily look similar, and recognition of cognates presupposes knowledge of the sound laws of the respective languages.


title: Swadesh list

text: Swadesh's final list, published in 1971, contains 100 terms. Explanations of the terms can be found in Swadesh 1952 or, where noted by a dagger (), in Swadesh 1955. Note that only this original sequence clarifies the correct meaning which is lost in an alphabetical order, e.g., in the case "27. bark" (originally without the specification here added).


title: Swadesh list

text: The 110-item Global Lexicostatistical Database list uses the original 100-item Swadesh list, in addition to 10 other words from the Swadesh–Yakhontov list.


title: Swadesh list

text: In Wiktionary (""), Panlex and in Palisto's "Swadesh Word List of Indo-European languages", hundreds of Swadesh lists in this form can be found.


title: Swadesh list

text: The Swadesh–Yakhontov list is a 35-word subset of the Swadesh list posited as especially stable by Russian linguist Sergei Yakhontov around the 1960s, although the list was only officially published in 1991. It has been used in lexicostatistics by linguists such as Sergei Starostin. With their Swadesh numbers, they are:


title: Swadesh list

text: Holman "et al." (2008) found that in identifying the relationships between Chinese dialects the Swadesh–Yakhontov list was less accurate than the original Swadesh-100 list. Further they found that a different (40-word) list (also known as the ASJP list) was just as accurate as the Swadesh-100 list. However, they calculated the relative stability of the words by comparing retentions between languages in established language families. They found no statistically significant difference in the correlations in the families of the Old versus the New World.


title: Swadesh list

text: The ranked Swadesh-100 list, with Swadesh numbers and relative stability, is as follows (Holman "et al.," Appendix. Asterisked words appear on the 40-word list):


title: Swadesh list

text: In studying the sign languages of Vietnam and Thailand, linguist James Woodward noted that the traditional Swadesh list applied to spoken languages was unsuited for sign languages. The Swadesh list results in overestimation of the relationships between sign languages, due to indexical signs such as pronouns and parts of the body. The modified list is as follows, in largely alphabetical order:


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: Bolero is a 1984 American romantic drama film written and directed by John Derek and starring Bo Derek. The film centers on the protagonist's sexual awakening and her journey around the world to pursue an ideal first lover who will take her virginity.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: A box office flop, the film was critically panned, earning nominations for nine Golden Raspberry Awards at the 5th Golden Raspberry Awards and "winning" six, including the Worst Picture. It won the CVF Awards for "Worst Picture" (Golan-Globus), "Worst Actress" (Bo Derek), "Worst Actor" (George Kennedy), "Worst Supporting Actress" (Andrea Occhipinti), "Worst Director" (John Derek), "Worst Screenplay" (John Derek)", and "Worst Musical Score" (Peter and Elmer Bernstein).


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: Set in the 1920s, Ayre "Mac" MacGillvary is a virginal 23-year-old young American who graduates from an exclusive British college. An orphan heiress to a vast fortune, Ayre is determined to find the right man for her first sexual encounter wherever he might be in the world. Rich enough not to venture forth alone, she brings along her best friend Catalina and the family chauffeur Cotton.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: Ayre first travels to Morocco where she meets an ideal lover, an Arab sheik who offers to deflower her. He takes her away in his private airplane to an oasis in the desert, but during foreplay, while rubbing her nude body with honey, he falls asleep almost immediately. Giving up on the sheik, Ayre goes on to Spain, where she meets the toreador Angel, and sets out to seduce him. Into this group comes Paloma, a 14-year-old local Gypsy girl whom Ayre and Catalina take under their wing. A minor subplot involves Catalina meeting and pursuing Ayre's lawyer, Robert Stewart, a kilt-wearing Scotsman whom Catalina chooses to deflower her.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: After several days of courtship and flirting, Angel makes love to Ayre one morning and he manages to stay awake. Unfortunately, after Ayre has succeeded in her quest to lose her virginity, Angel is gored while bullfighting the next day.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: The injury leaves Angel unable to perform in the bedroom, and so Ayre makes it her mission in life to see to his recovery. Along the way, she takes up bullfighting herself as a way of getting her despondent lover motivated to stop moping. During this, the Arab sheik flies to Spain to abduct Ayre, but she manages to convince him that she has already lost her virginity and he lets her go.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: Eventually, Ayre is successful in aiding Angel to full recovery which leads to a climactic lovemaking session between them. Finally, Ayre and Angel get married at a local church.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: Executive producer and Cannon Films co-head Menahem Golan urged the Dereks to make the sex scenes more explicit, despite the pair's objections that the scenes were strong enough. The film was to be distributed by MGM as part of an ongoing deal with Cannon, and Bo Derek screened the film for MGM's then-CEO Frank Yablans, hoping that he would intervene with Golan on the matter of the erotic content. Yablans disliked the film as much as all the other films Cannon was delivering to MGM.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: When the producers refused to cut the film to avoid an X rating by the MPAA, MGM dropped the film due to standards policies and Cannon released "Bolero" themselves. The quality of "Bolero" and the other Cannon/MGM films led to Yablans using a breach of contract clause to terminate the distribution deal with Cannon in November 1984. "Bolero" was ultimately released with no MPAA rating, with a disclaimer on ads that no children under 17 would be admitted to the film. Despite this, many theater chains that normally refused to screen X-rated films did the same for "Bolero".


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: Olivia d'Abo, who had a nude scene, was 14 during filming. "I matured physically at 13. When I did 'Bolero' with Bo and John Derek, John thought I had implants. But I know I look young and innocent, which helps me get roles," she said.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 0% based on 23 reviews and an average rating of 1.43/10. The website's consensus reads, ""Bolero" combines a ludicrous storyline and wildly mismatched cast in its desperate attempts to titillate, but only succeeds in arousing boredom". Metacritic reports a score of 13/100 based on nine critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave "Bolero" a rare grade of "F" on an A+ to F scale, making it the first of only 22 films that are known to have received this grade.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 0.5 out of 4 stars, writing: "The real future of "Bolero" is in home cassette rentals, where your fast forward and instant replay controls will supply the editing job the movie so desperately needs". David Robinson of "The Times" said that the story was "the authentic stuff of mild pornography", and wrote that the film's climax "No doubt ... distracted the writer-director from the dialogue, which is in every sense unspeakable." David Richards of "The Washington Post" wrote: "Bad as "Bolero" is, it is unfortunately not bad enough. Seekers of inadvertent high-camp hilarity will be as let down as those who are suckered in by the promise of Bo's golden flesh". Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that the plot "sounds like that of a straight porn film, which is what "Bolero" would have become with anyone other than John Derek directing", and criticized the dialogue as "tending to sound like very bad pulp romance". David Sterritt of "The Christian Science Monitor" wrote: "This tedious romance ... is a strong candidate for worst picture of the year".


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: It was nominated for nine Golden Raspberry Awards and won six, including "Worst Picture", "Worst Actress," "Worst Director", and "Worst Screenplay". In 1990, the film was nominated for the Razzie Award for "Worst Picture of the Decade", but lost to "Mommie Dearest". Also in 1984, the film was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for Worst Picture.


title: Bolero (1984 film)

text: In 1985, U.S.A. Home Video released "Bolero" in both Unrated and R-Rated versions to the video rental marketplace. In 2005, MGM Home Entertainment released "Bolero" on DVD, after the rights to the majority of Cannon Film productions reverted to MGM.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: B'nai B'rith International (, from ) is a Jewish service organization. B'nai B'rith states that it is committed to the security and continuity of the Jewish people and the State of Israel and combating antisemitism and other forms of bigotry.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: Although the organization's historic roots stem from a system of fraternal lodges and units in the late 19th century, as fraternal organizations declined throughout the United States, the organization evolved into a dual system of both lodges and units. The membership pattern became more common to other contemporary organizations of members affiliated by contribution in addition to formal dues paying members. B'nai B'rith has members, donors and supporters around the world.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: B'nai B'rith was founded in Aaron Sinsheimer's café in New York City's Lower East Side on October 13, 1843, by 12 recent German Jewish immigrants led by Henry Jones. The new organization represented an attempt to organize Jews of the local community to confront what Isaac Rosenbourg, one of the founders, called "the deplorable condition of Jews in this, our newly adopted country". The new group's purpose, as described in its constitution, called for the traditional functions performed by Jewish societies in Europe: "Visiting and attending the sick" and "protecting and assisting the widow and the orphan." Its founders had hoped that it soon would encompass all Jews in the United States, but this did not happen, since other Jewish organizations also were forming around the same time.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: The German-speaking founders originally named the organization Bundes-Brüder (German for "Brothers of the Covenant") to reflect their goal of a fraternal order that could provide comfort to the entire spectrum of Jewish Americans. Although early meetings were conducted in German, after a short time English emerged as the language of choice and the name was changed to B'nai B'rith. In the late 20th century, the translation was changed to the more contemporary and inclusive Children of the Covenant.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: Despite its fraternal and local beginnings, B'nai B'rith spoke out for Jewish rights early in its history and used its growing national chain of lodges as a way to exercise political influence on behalf of world Jewry. In 1851, for example, it circulated petitions urging Secretary of State Daniel Webster to demand the end of Jewish disabilities in Switzerland, during on-going trade negotiations. Into the 1920s the B'nai B'rith continued in its political work by joining in Jewish delegations and lobbying efforts through which American Jews sought to influence public policy, both domestic and foreign. B'nai B'rith also played a crucial role in transnational Jewish politics. The later spread of the organization around the world made it a nerve center of intra-Jewish communication and mutual endeavor.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: The organization's activities during the 19th and 20th centuries were dominated by mutual aid, social service and philanthropy. In keeping with their concerns for protecting their families, the organization's first concrete action was the establishment of an insurance policy awarding widows of deceased members $30 toward funeral expenses and a stipend of $1 a week for the rest of their life. To aid their children, each child would also receive a stipend and, for male children, the assurance he would be taught a trade.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In 1851, Covenant Hall was erected in New York City as the first Jewish community center in the United States, and also what is widely considered to be the first Jewish public library in the United States. One year later, B'nai B'rith established the Maimonides Library. Immediately following the Civil War—when Jews on both sides of the battle were left homeless—B'nai B'rith founded the 200-bed Cleveland Jewish Orphan Home. Over the next several years, the organization would establish numerous hospitals, orphanages and homes for the aged.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In 1868, when a devastating flood crippled Baltimore, B'nai B'rith responded with a disaster relief campaign. This act preceded the founding of the American Red Cross by 13 years and was to be the first of many domestic relief programs. That same year, B'nai B'rith sponsored its first overseas philanthropic project raising $4,522 to aid the victims of a cholera epidemic in Ottoman Palestine.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In 1875, a lodge was established in Toronto, followed soon after by another in Montreal and in 1882 by a lodge in Berlin. Membership outside of the United States grew rapidly. Soon, lodges were formed in Cairo (1887) and in Jerusalem (1888—nine years before Theodor Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland). The Jerusalem lodge became the first public organization to hold all of its meetings in Hebrew.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: After 1881, with the mass immigration of Eastern European Jews to the United States, B'nai B'rith sponsored Americanization classes, trade schools and relief programs. This began a period of rapid membership growth, a change in the system of representation and questioning of the secret rituals common to fraternal organizations. In 1897, when the organization's U.S. membership numbered slightly more than 18,000, B'nai B'rith formed a ladies' auxiliary chapter in San Francisco. This was to become B'nai B'rith Women, which in 1988 broke away as an independent organization, Jewish Women International.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In response to the Kishinev pogrom in 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of State John Hay met with B'nai B'rith's executive committee in Washington, D.C. B'nai B'rith President Simon Wolf presented the draft of a petition to be sent to the Russian government protesting the lack of opposition to the massacre. Roosevelt readily agreed to transmit it and B'nai B'rith lodges began gathering signatures around the country.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In the first two decades of the 20th century B'nai B'rith launched three of today's major Jewish organizations: The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and BBYO (originally B'nai B'rith Youth Organization). Later they would take on a life of their own with varying degrees of autonomy.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: A growing concern in the 1920s was the preservation of Jewish values as immigration slowed and a native Jewish population of Eastern European ancestry came to maturity. In 1923, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel of Illinois established Hillel - an organization on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to provide both Reform and Orthodox Sabbath services, classes in Judaism and social events for Jewish college students. Two years later, he approached B'nai B'rith about adopting this new campus organization. B'nai B'rith sponsorship of the Hillel Foundations enabled it to extend throughout the United States, eventually become international and to grow into a network of more than 500 campus student organizations.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: At virtually the same time as was being established, Sam Beber of Omaha, Neb., presented a plan in 1924 to B'nai B'rith for a fraternity for Jewish men in high school. The new organization was called Aleph Zadik Aleph in imitation of the Greek-letter fraternities from which Jewish youth were excluded. In 1925, AZA became the junior auxiliary of B'nai B'rith.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In 1940, B'nai B'rith Women adopted its own junior auxiliary for young women, B'nai B'rith Girls (BBG, then a loose-knit group of organizations) and, in 1944, the two organizations became the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO).


title: B'nai B'rith

text: B'nai B'rith has also been involved in Jewish camping for more than a half century. In 1953, B'nai B'rith acquired a camp in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. Originally named Camp B'nai B'rith, the facility would later be named B'nai B'rith Perlman Camp in honor of the early BBYO leader Anita Perlman and her husband, Louis. In 1976, a second camp was added near Madison, Wis. Named after the founder of AZA, the camp became known as B'nai B'rith Beber Camp. In 2010, Beber Camp became independent of B'nai B'rith. Perlman Camp functions as both a Jewish children's camp and as a leadership training facility.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In 1938 B'nai B'rith established the Vocational Service Bureau to guide young people into careers. This evolved into the B'nai B'rith Career and Counseling Service, an agency that provided vocational testing and counseling, and published career guides. In the mid-1980s, the program was dissolved or merged into other community agencies.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: On March 9–11, 1977, three buildings in Washington, D.C. were seized by 12 African American Muslim gunmen, led by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, who took 149 hostages and killed a radio journalist and a police officer. After a 39-hour standoff, all other hostages were released from the District Building (the city hall; now called the John A. Wilson Building), B'nai B'rith headquarters, and the Islamic Center of Washington.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: The gunmen had several demands. They "wanted the government to hand over a group of men who had been convicted of killing seven relatives – mostly children – of takeover leader Hamaas Khaalis. They also demanded that the movie "Mohammad, Messenger of God" be destroyed because they considered it sacrilegious."


title: B'nai B'rith

text: "Time" magazine noted: "That the toll was not higher was in part a tribute to the primary tactic U.S. law enforcement officials are now using to thwart terrorists—patience. But most of all, perhaps, it was due to the courageous intervention of three Muslim ambassadors, Egypt's Ashraf Ghorbal, Pakistan's Sahabzada Yaqub-Khan and Iran's Ardeshir Zahedi."


title: B'nai B'rith

text: From its earliest days, a hallmark of the organization's local efforts was service to the communities in which members reside. In 1852, that meant raising money for the first Jewish hospital in Philadelphia. In the 21st century, these community service efforts range from delivering Jewish holiday packages of meals and clothing to the elderly and infirm, and distributing food and medicine to the Jewish community of Cuba.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: With the graying of the American Jewish population, service to seniors became a major focus with the first of what was to become a network of 36 senior residence buildings in more than 27 communities across the United States and more internationally—making B'nai B'rith the largest national Jewish sponsor of housing for seniors. The U.S. facilities—built in partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—provide quality housing to more than 6,000 men and women of limited income, age 62 and over, of all races and religions. Residents pay a federally mandated rent based upon income.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: The beginning of the 21st century also saw the senior service program expand and become the Center for Senior Services, providing advocacy, publications and other services to address financial, legal, health, religious, social and family concerns for those over 50.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In recent years, B'nai B'rith has advocated for health care reform, Social Security and Medicare protection.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: B'nai B'rith also includes, on its domestic agenda, tolerance issues such as advocating for hate crimes legislation as well as sponsoring a youth writing challenge, Diverse Minds. This annual writing contest asks high school students to create a children's book dedicated to the message of ending intolerance and bigotry. Winners earn college scholarships and the publication and distribution of their books to schools and libraries in their communities.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: B'nai B'rith also sponsors the Enlighten America program, the centerpiece of which is a pledge that individuals can take to refrain from using slang expressions or telling jokes based on race, sexual orientation, gender, nationality or physical or mental challenges that would serve to demean another.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: B'nai B'rith also produces and distributes "Smarter Kids – Safer Kids", a booklet in both English and Spanish meant to guide parents through discussions with their children about potential dangers.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: The American-based international B'nai B'rith organization founded the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) as a response to attacks on Jews in the United States. The announcement of the creation of the ADL mentioned the Leo Frank lynching in particular. The ADL is now an independent organization.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: In Australia and New Zealand, the local B'nai B'rith has its own human rights arm, called the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC). It is dedicated to eliminating the defamation of Jewish people, combating racism, intolerance, and prejudice. It seeks to secure justice and fair treatment for all citizens alike.


title: B'nai B'rith

text: Since 1886, B'nai B'rith has published B'nai B'rith Magazine, the oldest continually published Jewish periodical in the United States.