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Near Gaza, Unrest in the Sinai

[Wall Street Journal] Cam Simpson - There may be new troubles brewing right next door to Gaza in the Egyptian Sinai desert. The gap between Cairo and the Bedouins of northern Sinai was a fairly local concern until 2004, when extremists launched coordinated bombings at three resorts near the Israeli border - the first acts of terror in Egypt since 1997. Four more attacks and more than 120 deaths later, Israeli officials say the Sinai remains restive and rife with extremism. Yuval Diskin, the chief of Israel's Shin Bet security agency, told foreign journalists that Israeli intelligence officials see the Sinai as crucial new ground for the "Global Jihad" movement of Sunni Muslim extremists, who espouse ideology similar to Osama bin Laden's and employ nearly identical terrorist tactics. "I think the Egyptians have big, big problems here," he said. He also said Israeli officials are seeing growing connections between Sinai militants and those in Gaza.
2007-07-06 01:00:00
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