| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa: North |
| Mine blast hits Egyptian police |
| 2005-08-28 |
| A land mine damaged an Egyptian police vehicle in northern Sinai on Saturday, injuring a police colonel and a civilian helping police track the group suspected of seven bombings in the area, a security source said. It was the third such blast in Sinai since police last week launched a large-scale search operation for the group, believed to be Sinai Bedouin under the influence of militant Islamists. The security sources, who asked not to be named, identified the officer as Lieutenant-Colonel Rushdi el-Sayed and the tracker as Hassan Eid, a Sinai Bedouin. The land mine exploded near Mount Halal, the area which has been at the center of the search, the source added. Mount Halal rises to 892 meters (2,900 feet) and lies about 60 km (35 miles) south of the Mediterranean town of el Arish, the home area of several named bombing suspects. Police say they were looking for the remaining members of the group which killed at least 98 people in bombings in the Red Sea resorts of Taba in October and Sharm el-Sheikh in July. Land mine explosions in Sinai on Wednesday and Thursday damaged three police vehicles, killed two police officers and injured at least five policemen and a civilian. Some 3,500 police with 20 armored vehicles are taking part in the operation, security sources said last week. Parts of Sinai still have landmines from wars between Egypt and Israel but the number of explosions this week suggests the fugitives laid them recently, a security source said. Police held 34 local people for questioning on Friday but it was not clear if they were part of the group, the source added. Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said this week the government was looking at social factors in north Sinai that might have contributed to inspiring people to become suicide bombers in Sharm el-Sheikh. "We need to see why this happened and how this happened," he told Tuesday's New York Times. "Is it just people frustrated, or are they people with connections?" He said the authorities were working with two theories about who was behind the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings -- either that security forces were so aggressive after the Taba blasts that they prompted retaliation by locals or that the group had international connections such as to al Qaeda. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |