When Egypt’s new intelligence chief quietly flew to Syria’s capital for a day of meetings last month, his American counterparts took note.
What was Murad Muwafi, the new Egyptian spymaster, doing in Damascus? With whom was he meeting? “Honestly, we have our ideas, but we don’t know anything for certain,” said a senior U.S. defense official, who didn’t elaborate on what those ideas might be. “I wouldn’t say we’re worried—not yet. Concerned is probably a better word.”
The tumult that is challenging autocratic regimes across the Middle East is upending U.S. intelligence relationships built over decades. The changes threaten to undermine U.S. influence in the region at a crucial moment and leave efforts to combat al Qaeda and other Islamist groups in limbo.
Nowhere else in the Middle East is that uncertainty as marked as it is in Egypt, for decades the most reliably pro-American Arab country. Ties between U.S. and Egyptian intelligence have been the cornerstone of America’s clandestine operations in the region, and they were largely based around a single man, Omar Suleiman.
From 1993 until January, at the outset of protests that would force him and former President Hosni Mubarak out, he was the chief of Egypt’s General Intelligence Directorate.
Before his departure, Mr. Suleiman kept a lid on the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement and regularly dined with top U.S. officials, advising them on some of their thorniest foreign-policy dilemmas: how to check Iran’s influence or curb the power of Hamas, for example. Through Mr. Suleiman, Egypt became in 1995 the first country to cooperate with the U.S. program of rendition—sending terrorism suspects to third countries where they faced questioning and, in many cases, torture.
U.S. officials say their new contact, 61-year-old Mr. Muwafi, is more circumspect in his relationship with them.
“Egypt has gone through a major hiccup, so clearly we’re dealing with evolving and emerging new personnel and personalities,” said a second U.S. official. “Omar Suleiman had a very deep and personal connection to President Mubarak, and we don’t know how the next” intelligence chief will play out.
The few details of Mr. Muwafi’s resumé that are publicly available suggest a man willing to work with the U.S. Much like Mr. Suleiman, he rose through the ranks of the powerful and pro-Western Egyptian military. He eventually attained the rank of major general and ran military intelligence before entering politics as the governor of Egyptian’s North Sinai Governorate, which runs the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.
“It’s maybe too soon to decide what the characteristics” of the new relationship will be, the second U.S. official said. “So far the signals are where we had a long-standing joint interest before, which is to find violent extremists and prevent them from wreaking havoc on either Egypt or the United States or our friends, I think that is still a driving force of our cooperation.”
U.S. officials said Mr. Muwafi was one of the people the Washington contacted after Egyptian authorities released the brother of al Qaeda’s fugitive deputy leader, Ayman Al Zawahiri, amid a broader release of political prisoners after Mr. Mubarak’s fall. The brother, Muhammad al Zawahiri, is a prominent Islamist in his own right, and U.S. officials said they were concerned his release was a sign Egypt was shifting toward a softer line on extremists. Muhammad al Zawahiri was re-arrested within days.
Authorities here now say they plan is to retry Mr. al Zawahiri for his alleged role in the 1981 assassination of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, a crime for which he was originally sentenced to death in 1999, although the sentence was never carried out.Neither Mr. Muwafi nor Egypt’s intelligence service, which has no spokesman, could be reached for comment on Mr. Zawahiri’s case or the general thrust of Egyptian intelligence in the post-Mubarak era.
U.S., European and Israeli officials are worried that Mr. Muwafi, like the rest of the Egyptian national security establishment, will soon find himself working with a new government that is likely to be more responsive to public opinion, which is overwhelmingly negative on the U.S. and Israel. Elections are scheduled for late this year.
The Muslim Brotherhood is also expected to have a powerful voice in government, and Egyptian officials are already talking about the need for a foreign policy more independent of the U.S.
Mr. Muwafi and others “have a vision for what the relationship [with the U.S.] should look like after the revolution,” said Mohammed Ali Bilal, a retired army general who worked closely with Mr. Muwafi. “This is a new era and they should consider the interests of Egypt.”
Mr. Muwafi’s March 18 trip to Syria appears to be an indication of Egypt’s changing priorities. Senior Egyptian officials, including Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby, have said in recent weeks they want to repair their country’s relationship with Syria, and the timing of Mr. Muwafi’s visit coincided with an Egyptian push to restart the Palestinian reconciliation process.
Much of Hamas’ senior leadership lives in Damascus. Meeting with them could have been the main goal of the visit, U.S. officials said. “I think if we knew more, we’d feel better about it,” said the senior U.S. defense official.
Israeli officials, who also maintained relatively close ties with Mr. Suleiman, were far less sanguine, analysts said.
Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Israelis didn’t know Mr. Muwafi well and he has kept his distance from them.
“We are not sure what was the exact purpose” of the trip to Syria, said Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He called the trip “very unusual.”