Sinai bombings are by Qaeda

Dan Morrison

CAIRO: The body of Nasser Khamis Al-Mallahi has been carted away from the olive grove where he was gunned down on Tuesday, and the police celebrations have quieted, but important questions remain about the true authors of 18 months of bombings on the Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian authorities say Al-Mallahi and his compatriots — Bedouins native to the deeply impoverished northern Sinai — are part of an isolated group that conceived and carried out bombings that killed more than 100 people. “This is a major blow to the terrorist group,’’ Police Lieutenant-General Essam El-Sheikh said.

Other analysts believe the bombings were financed and directed by Al-Qaeda. Egypt, a relative bastion of stability in the Middle East, killed or expelled most of its hardcore Islamic militants in the 1990s, and strongly denies an Al-Qaeda presence on its soil. 

“I’m sceptical of the Egyptian assertion, that it’s an isolated bunch of disaffected Bedouins,’’ Arthur Hughes, who headed the Sinai military observer force from 1998 to 2004, told DNA. “To think that they were the authors, it stretches credibility.’’

Al-Mallahi’s group, Unification and Holy War (Tawhid wal Jihad) was born in the town of Al-
Arish, a bitterly poor outpost near the border of Egypt, Israel and the Gaza Strip.  Almost 25 years after Egypt regained the Sinai from Israel as part of the historic Camp David peace treaty, Al-Arish is described as a textbook case of underdevelopment, with poor schools, no jobs and salty drinking water.

It’s fertile ground for rebellion. But by whom? Did the Sinai bombers need Al Qaeda’s help? Or were they, like the 2005 London Underground bombers, a group of inspired freelancers? 

The Sinai bombings began in October 2004, when 34 people were killed at Taha, a popular Israeli tourist site.

In July 2005, more than 60 died at Sharm El-Sheikh, the site of next week’s Middle East round of the World Economic Forum. On April 24, 20 people, the majority Egyptians, were killed by three suicide bombers in Dahab. 

The Multi-Force Observer mission, which monitors the Egyptian-Israeli border, was the target of failed suicide attacks last year and again on April 26. Those bombers were “incompetent, not very well trained’’ Hughes said. “The question is, who is making the (suicide) belts?’’

“Sinai is very symbolic— it is a symbol of the peace between Egypt and Israel,’’ said Hala Mustafa, editor of Democracy Review, an Egyptian quarterly. “By attacking Sinai you are attacking the Egyptian state.’’