(CNN) Mohamed Fadel Fahmy - A well-armed jihadist group is making its presence felt in the Egyptian town of el Arish in Sinai on the Mediterranean coast, intimidating opponents and demanding Egypt becomes an Islamist state. In July the Takfir-wal Higra - a group sympathetic to al-Qaeda's goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate - "stormed in by the hundreds mounted on pickup trucks and motorcycles waving black flags, a symbol of Jihad," said local resident Mohamed Mahmoud. "The militants were heavily armed with machine guns, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades," he said. "They attacked two police stations and scared the residents under the name of Jihad." The head of security in North Sinai, General Saleh al Masry, told CNN: "I guarantee there is no al-Qaeda presence in Sinai but the Takfiris are in the thousands." Takfir-wal Higra was founded by Shukri Mustafa in the 1970s as a splinter group of the Muslim Brotherhood.
2011-08-11 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive