‘Egypt planning to destroy Gaza smuggling tunnels’

On Aug 14, JPOST published Egypt launches massive operation to control Sinai

BY YAAKOV KATZ, JPOST

Egyptian security forces were mapping the network of tunnels running between the Sinai peninsula and the Gaza Strip in preparation to destroy the smuggling tunnels, Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk quoted official sources as saying on Wednesday.

In addition, the security forces are tightening security at the Philadelphi Corridor, the line that separates Sinai and Gazan sides of the city of Rafah, in an attempt to bring the Sinai peninsula under tighter control.

Egypt has been in pursuit of elements believed to be connected with acts of sabotage in Sinai, notably, repeated attempts to blow up the pipeline which carries natural gas to both Jordan and Israel. In efforts to restrict the movement of these elements, Egypt has coordinated with Hamas to prevent infiltration across the border in either direction, according to the report. The report added that Egypt has made it clear to Hamas that any Palestinians caught infiltrating into Sinai will be handed over to Egyptian security authorities.

The Egyptian military has reinforced its security along the border with Israel in the aftermath of last week’s multi-stage terror attack, emanating from Sinai, in which killed eight Israelis.

The day after the attack, a number of Egyptian security personnel were reportedly killed and wounded after a suicide bomber blew himself up on the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi Corridor.

Israeli security officials said that the suicide bomber appeared to belong to the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), which was behind the well-planned multi-stage attack near Eilat. Egypt denied that the soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber and said that they were hit in an explosion caused by bombs that were planted along the border, likely by the terror cell.

Last week, after the Eilat attacks, Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke with a number of senior Egyptian officials in an effort to coordinate ways to prevent similar attacks in the future. IDF sources were critical of the Egyptian military as the PRC gunmen who infiltrated Israel, passed an Egyptian military outpost and were not stopped.

“There seems to be an understanding in Egypt following the attacks that the situation there needs to change,” a senior IDF officer said on Friday. “We hope the attacks will serve as the wake-up call for Egypt, which will need to work hard to regain control of the peninsula.”

Senior officers from the Egyptian military reportedly visited Sinai and met with leaders of the three main Beduin tribes there to discuss ways to stop the violence in the peninsula.

August 25, 2011 | 1 Comment »

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  1. “…In a recent report, the American think-tank Stratfor suggests that the power vacuum in Sinai is partly of the Egyptian military’s own making, and is due to an attempt by the army to weaken its main rival, the Muslim Brotherhood:
    Egypt’s military regime is already facing a significant challenge in trying to manage a political transition at home among varied opposition groups. Its strategy so far to contain the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has been to allow the emergence of various Islamist actors, including Salafist groups, to broaden competition in the political arena.

    Sowing divisions among political Islamists can be a tricky process (and one that is extremely worrying for Israel), especially as Egypt also has to worry about preventing coordination between these groups and militant factions in nearby Gaza, such as Hamas. The security vacuum in the Sinai is now compounding these concerns as the Egyptian regime has been struggling to reassert its influence over groups operating in the Sinai-Gaza borderland. …”

    from Victor Kotsev’s fine analysis in AsiaTimes online today. http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MH24Ak03.html
    The Stratfor analyses are even better.

    Kind of scary that Egypt is suddenly mapping the tunnels. Guess Egypt can not borrow the maps from Israel, but one would think someone could Fedex them from …Yemen 🙂