In a surprising decision, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi issued a decision on Wednesday appointing Major General Hassan Rashad as head of Egyptian General Intelligence, succeeding Abbas Kamel, whom media circles close to the regime describe as “the second man in the state.”
According to the decision, Kamel was appointed as Advisor to the President of the Republic, General Coordinator of the Security Services, and Special Envoy of the President of the Republic.
Kamel (62 years old) was the 26th head of General Intelligence, one of the agencies called “sovereign” in Egypt, like the Military Intelligence and National Security agencies (formerly State Security).
Due to his close proximity to the Egyptian President, Kamel was described as “the president’s shadow” and “the keeper of his secrets,” and he appeared in most of Sisi’s meetings and tours, even political, security, economic, and foreign meetings.
Kamel was sworn in before Sisi as head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service in June 2018, as he had been assigned to run the agency’s work since January of the same year, succeeding Major General Khaled Fawzi.
Kamel had accompanied Sisi during his work in Military Intelligence, where he held the position of director of his office after being promoted to many positions until Sisi assumed the position of the Ministry of Defense and then the Presidency of the Republic.
Kamel, born in 1957, graduated from the Military College as an officer in the Armored Corps in 1978. He also completed a training course in advanced armor from the United States of America, and a course in the work strategy of Egyptian attaches from the Geneva Institute for Security Policy in Switzerland.
Abbas Kamel rose through the ranks of Egyptian Military Intelligence in the Department of Military Attachés, where he held the position of Assistant Egyptian Defense Attaché in the Czech Republic, then Head of the Military Attachés Branch, “Department of Military Intelligence and Reconnaissance.”
Kamel became director of Sisi’s office first in military intelligence, then in the Ministry of Defense as director of the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, before becoming director of his office in the presidency between 2014 and 2018.
At this time, Kamel’s media appearance was minimal, and he appeared in fleeting clips during Sisi’s visit to Jordan in December 2014, and to Kuwait the following month, and at the condolences of the King of Saudi Arabia, until he became the talk of social networking sites after secret calls attributed to him were leaked.
In 2013, Kamel appeared in an audio leak of the first press interview given by Sisi, with journalist Yasser Rizk in October 2013, after the overthrow of the former president, Mohamed Morsi. When the journalist asked the interviewer, Sisi, about the number of victims of the dispersal of the Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins, he replied: “Ask Abbas,” which highlights Kamel’s pivotal role in the files of the Egyptian state administration since that time.
Kamel chaired the committee of experts charged with examining the progress of the “espionage with Qatar” case, in which the late President Mohamed Morsi and 10 other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were accused of leaking national security documents to the State of Qatar. He also testified in that case in 2015.
As head of Egyptian General Intelligence, Kamel played a pivotal role in many pivotal files for Egypt and the region. He made several tours in recent months, starting with his repeated visits to Sudan and Libya, through his visits to a number of African countries to coordinate the Renaissance Dam crisis with Ethiopia, all the way to his visits to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Israel.
Kamel’s name was mentioned in the file of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, the Gaza war, and the hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas. His name appeared in Western newspapers, when sources familiar with the negotiations in Doha, Qatar, revealed to the Wall Street Journal that the atmosphere was so tense last July, that “when the Israeli negotiating team presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new demands to secure the strategic corridors.” In Gaza, the head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel, lost his temper and exploded in anger. Kamel also told his team that Netanyahu was wasting his time.
Last August, Israeli sources reported that the head of the Shin Bet, Ronan Bar, met with Kamel in Cairo for talks that addressed, among other matters, the stalemate in negotiations over the hostage deal and the ceasefire in Gaza, according to a source familiar with the visit.
According to the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz”, this is the first time that the two sides have met since August.
This was the first visit by a high-ranking Israeli official to Cairo since August 22, when the heads of the Shin Bet and Mossad visited Cairo to discuss the deployment of Israeli army forces along the Philadelphia axis and the reopening of the Rafah crossing as part of a possible hostage deal.
Kamel was responsible for the Libya file and played a pivotal role in it, which also required the restoration of relations between Egypt and the Turkish government. Last March, Kamel’s surprise visit to eastern Libya and his meeting with Major General Khalifa Haftar at that time raised some questions about the goals and whether there was new Egyptian pressure or marketing for Cairo’s initiative regarding merging the two governments.
Kamel met with Haftar in his office in the Rajma area in the city of Benghazi to discuss the latest political developments in the Libyan crisis and the importance of pushing the political process forward by supporting the balanced efforts of the United Nations mission in Libya, according to the media office of Haftar’s forces.
News was recently circulated about an Egyptian initiative to resolve the executive authority crisis in Libya by merging the two governments there into one government headed by Abdul Hamid Al-Dabaiba, with Osama Hammad as his deputy, in coordination with Turkey.
The war in Sudan was Kamel’s top priority. He took many steps, in addition to exchanging visits between Egypt and Sudan, the last of which was last August, when he met with the head of the Sudanese Transitional Sovereignty Council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, to confirm Egypt’s support for the Sudanese army in its war against what the Egyptian government described as “the Rapid Support militias.” “, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti).
In a development of remarkable timing, especially after Egypt sent weapons to Somalia, Kamel, accompanied by Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Ati, visited Eritrea last September, to discuss restoring navigation through Bab al-Mandab and developments in the situation in Somalia, as well as to discuss the Renaissance Dam file and the dispute with Ethiopia.
This set the stage for Sisi’s subsequent visit to Eritrea, last week, during which he met with the presidents of Eritrea and Somalia in a tripartite summit in Asmara against the backdrop of increasing tensions in the Horn of Africa region.
In mid-August, Egypt signed a joint defense agreement with Somalia and sent weapons to Mogadishu, which angered Ethiopia. This Egyptian step came at the time in light of Ethiopia’s efforts to establish a naval base in Somaliland.
Kamel won the Long Service Medal, the Order of the Republic, Second Class, and the Commander’s Medal from Brazil.
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