Drug empire falls
Police enforcers turned drug barons -- Reem Nafie, in the Upper Egyptian Nile island of Nekheila, reports on the rise and fall of the Awlad Hanafi clan
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Clockwise from left: guns are abundant in Nekheila; police take aim at the druglords' stronghold; stacks of bango found at the leader's house
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Police had for the most part contained an explosive four-day hostage situation in Assiut by Tuesday. Bulldozers were busy razing the watchtowers that had been built by gang leader Ezzat to protect his fortress and empire.
The Awlad Hanafi family -- led by Hamed Mohamed Hamed, or Ezzat -- had basically controlled the Nile island of Nekheila in Assiut, around 320 kilometres south of Cairo, for more than three decades .
Most recently, the family ran a massive drug trafficking and illegal gun trade business. Speculation was rife about the timing of last week's Interior Ministry raid on Ezzat, which was an attempt to end what locals called the "Awlad Hanafi era".
Ezzat's father Mohamed Hamed had migrated to Nekheila in the 1960s, going into the business of renting other people's lands to cultivate them. Hamed, however, soon strong-armed his landlords and confiscated the land for himself. According to Nekheila resident Wael Sabri, Hamed was famous for telling the landowners to either "leave, or be killed". Many actually did leave, Sabri said, especially Christians who were a minority in Nekheila and felt easily threatened.
During a prolonged conflict between security forces and Islamists in Upper Egypt in the 1990s, Nekheila acquired strategic importance as a hideout. Surrounded by water and with only one inland route that leads to a mountain, the island was a dangerous venue for the police, who needed local help to navigate the terrain. According to police sources speaking to Al- Ahram Weekly on customary condition of anonymity, the Interior Ministry sought out the Awlad Hanafi clan's assistance for just that purpose. Police sources also said the cooperation increased to the extent that the Awald Hanafi were even provided with weapons, and often helped capture militants who were at large.
The family's government connection became a source of tremendous prestige and power on the island, and was soon used for illicit ends. More land was forcibly taken from the original owners. The 50 feddans commandeered by Hamed, Ezzat's father, had grown to 300.
The Awlad Hanafi clan then started to cultivate large tracts of bango (a popular form of marijuana), complementing that lucrative business with a brisk trade in opium, weapons and ammunition -- all from their growing empire on the island.
Everyone in Nekheila feared the power of the well- connected Awlad Hanafi. Their drug trafficking and gun trade had been going on for more than seven years. What, then, prompted last week's flare-up?
The family's latest criminal venture might have been the last straw. A feud over land with a neighbouring family, the Sebak, had become a full-on vendetta. Things first got bloody last September, when a Sebak family member killed Ezzat's brother Hassan, or El-Assad (The Lion). Two months later, Ezzat struck back, killing six Sebak family members, with the help of a third family, the Zouki. The very next day, the Sebaks slaughtered five Zoukis.
Three weeks ago, the Awlad Hanafi clan killed three Sebak family members. The cycle was becoming increasingly violent. On Sunday 22 February, a gun battle raged between the Sebaks and Awlad Hanafi. Shots being fired by Ezzat's brother Hamdi ended up hitting a train travelling along Egypt's north-south railway. The line was halted for a few hours, and the north-south highway was closed and traffic diverted as a precautionary measure as well.
Police officers speaking to the Weekly said that while some security officials might have been lending a deaf ear to the goings on in Nekheila, things had clearly gone too far. Security forces cordoned the island and forced a 24-hour curfew on the nearly 70,000 residents. More than 3,000 officers -- with reinforcements brought in from neighbouring governorates as well as Cairo, and 100 armoured vehicles were deployed around Nekheila.
Hiding in his fortress-like residence, Ezzat was claiming to be holding around 500 people hostage. The Interior Ministry's figure was more moderate -- they thought he might have been holding about 100 villagers. The fugitives threatened to ignite cooking gas canisters if the police tried to storm the village.
Security forces were unable to reach the house. In addition to the gas cannisters that were attached to the palm trees on the edges of the island, ready to be ignited at the first sign of a police advance, Ezzat had also dug a series of trenches to prevent security forces from reaching his house by land. Watchtowers manned with snipers also surrounded the area.
By Sunday 29 February, police were firing from three positions: by land -- from the other side of the island itself; at a distance -- from Gimsa, a village on the other side of the Nile; and from boats -- on the Nile itself. Gunfire rained down from the watchtowers. Some of Ezzat's supporters also tried to set the island's main electric power station on fire, in an attempt to stop the police from entering the town. They were arrested, as was a Hanafi family member who was trying to buy gas canisters from an island store on Monday morning.
As the Hanafi family blew up the remaining canisters they had, police managed to take over part of Ezzat's hideout and arrest several suspects, but not the clan leaders. The Interior Ministry said 15 Awlad Hanafi family members were arrested, and security forces confiscated an area of 10 feddans of cultivated bango.
As police continued to penetrate into the island, Ezzat had seemingly panicked and attempted to poison himself. Police said his relatives had tried to disguise him as a peasant woman riding a donkey, hoping he would pass unnoticed in the confusion, but his cover was soon blown.
As the Weekly went to print, Ezzat was in custody, in the hospital, in stable condition. While some of his closest associates and relatives remain at large, Ezzat's trial should prove interesting. Even before this last violent standoff, the gang leader was wanted by police, having been convicted in absentia of several crimes, and sentenced to a total of 130 years of prison.
