“BELIEVE me, the situation in Sinai—especially in this limited area—is under our full control,” said Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s president, after a Russian passenger jet crashed in the rugged peninsula on October 31st, the apparent victim of a bomb on board. Yet the figures suggest otherwise. Militant attacks in Sinai have risen to 357 this year, a tenfold increase from 2012, the year before he took power, says the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), a think-tank in Washington. Four major army operations, each more punishing than the last, have resulted in large numbers of deaths. Fatalities from counter-terror operations are up from 12 in 2012 to over 3,000 so far this year, says TIMEP (see chart). Detentions, often accompanied by torture, have soared from 16 in 2011 to over 3,600 for 2015. Amar Salah Goda, a former mayor of El Arish, Sinai’s largest city, and a mediator between the government and Sinai’s Bedouin tribes, is among those locked up. The Egyptian army says its latest assault—dubbed Operation Martyr’s Right—resulted in the death of 500 militants. Despite the toll, the ranks of militants seem only to grow.

The conflict started as a low-level insurgency fuelled by Bedouin grievances over their poverty. Now Sinai has become a battleground for Islamic State (IS), and the army’s harsh methods seem to be driving many of Sinai’s 400,000 Bedouin into the arms of the jihadists. “Egypt’s military leaders are like ostriches with heads in the sand,” says an analyst. “They say, ‘We’re winning hearts and minds with our great counter-insurgency plans,’ when they’re just stirring animosity with their collective punishment.”

In the north the army has destroyed hundreds of smuggling tunnels supplying Gaza, hitherto the Bedouin’s economic mainstay. The army has levelled neighbourhoods along its border, displacing tens of thousands of people. Elsewhere in North Sinai residents say the army is firing tank shells on homes in what seems an attempt to drive Bedouins into cities under its control. IS, for its part, is strengthening its grip on the countryside: militants have distributed leaflets telling residents to get permission before ploughing their lands.

On July 1st IS fighters briefly captured Sheikh Zuweid, north Sinai’s second city. “The Sheikh Zuweid assault showed a considerable improvement in capabilities and revealed techniques acquired in Iraq,” says Muhammad Gomaa, of Cairo’s Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.