 Egyptian authorities, already struggling with elusive terror cells in the rugged Sinai Peninsula, moved quickly Tuesday — arresting 30 men in the triple bombings that ripped apart a crowded resort town, killing 24 on a tranquil holiday evening.
"You, you, you, and you! Into the paddy wagon!"
"What'd we do?"
"Shuddup. Into the wagon wit' yez!" |
Radical Muslim groups moved just as rapidly to distance themselves from the Dahab attacks.
The leader of Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood condemned them as "aggression on human souls created by God." The militant Palestinian Hamas organization called them a "criminal attack which is against all human values."
| Much like your run-of-the-mill Hamas attack, in fact... |
Many frightened tourists fled Sinai coastal resorts where two previous bomb attacks — like the Dahab blasts — bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida-linked groups that appear to have a free hand to continue operations in the barren, backward and extremely rugged Sinai Peninsula.
| Desolate, inhospitable terrain, a buffer between one failed protostate and an attempted failed state... Just about perfect Qaeda qonditions, isn't it? |
Egyptian authorities — despite massive sweeps by thousands of troops and hundreds of arrests after each previous Sinai attack — appeared increasingly frustrated by the ease with which terrorists continue to hit the country's vital tourism industry.
| In authoritarian states like Egypt, the "intelligence" services tend toward the secret police end of things, rather than concentrating on analysis and reporting. Usable intel's essential to cleaning out terrorist groups. You've got to identify the bastards, then catch them, before you can beat on them. Merely taking random samples doesn't work. |
It brought in $6.4 billion in 2005 and is the top source of foreign exchange. "This incident is addressed to the whole of Egypt, there is no reason for it other than an attempt to destroy the economy of Egypt by attacking tourism," said Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif as he visited blast victims in a Sharm el-Sheik hospital.
| The economic war continues to rage, be it in the form of high gas prices for the West or attacks on Egypt's tourism industry, or attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure. |
President Hosni Mubarak, who oversees an already-stagnant economy with unemployment rising in lockstep with the population explosion, called the attack a "sinful terrorist action." The attacks came just one day after al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had urged Muslims to support al-Qaida in what he called a war against Islam.
| Gosh. You don't suppose the two could be related, do you? |
Egyptian officials have said local people were behind the previous bombings in the Sinai, but outside security experts say Sinai's extremists seem either al-Qaida linked or at least aligned with its views.
| I'd guess they're linked in the same way GSPC is, only not as tightly organized. Even with good intel it'd be difficult to root them out. |
Security officials, who refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release the information, said the remains of three men recovered from the scene of the blasts were so badly torn apart that they could have been suicide attackers.
| Kinda casts doubt on the previous statement that they were remote control booms, doesn't it? I knew that statement came too quick. |
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