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2 suspected Al Qaida bombers die in vain effort to kill peace-keepers

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, April 27, 2006

CAIRO — Al Qaida, in its second strike in three days, has targeted the multi-national peace-keeping force in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian government agencies provided differing accounts of the attacks in eastern Sinai on Wednesday, Middle East Newsline reported.

The Interior Ministry said a suicide bomber flung himself toward a vehicle of the Multinational Force and Observers in eastern Sinai. The bomber blew himself up and was killed. There were no MFO casualties reported.

Later, a second suspected Al Qaida operative detonated a bomb near an Egyptian police car that responded to the first attack. The operative was killed; a police brigadier general who was standing nearby was unhurt.

"The bomb blew him up and he died and the explosion had no other effect," the Interior Ministry said.

The bombings took place near MFO headquarters at El Gorah, about five kilometers south of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The MFO, designed to enforce the military clauses of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, has been stationed in Sinai since 1982.

The 1,800-member MFO contains personnel from Australia, Canada, Colombia, Fiji, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, New Zealand the United States and Uruguay.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But Egyptian sources said the bombing appeared to be the work of Al Qaida, which has established a network in Sinai.

On April 24, at least 23 people were killed in three suicide bombings in the southern Sinai town of Dahab. Egypt has arrested 10 people, including three computer technicians, in connection with the attacks.

The Egyptian official Middle East News Agency quoted security sources as saying that the MFO and Dahab strikes were linked. The sources cited three Bedouin fugitives — Nasr Khamis Malahi, Eid Salama Tarawi and Mohamed Abdullah Abu Jarir — sought by Egyptian authorities in connection with the bombings in Sharm e-Sheik in July 2005.

"The sources said that the perpetrators of the Dahab bombings were from the fugitive remnants of the Sharm e-Sheik bombings," MENA said. "The sources said the bombers were probably from among those three and from the terrorist cell to which they belong — all of them Sinai Bedouin on the run in the mountains."

Interior Minister Habib Adli said all of the strikes in Sinai were the work of an unidentified cell as Cairo sought to coordinate security with states in the region. On Thursday, Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman held talks in Yemen to discuss the possibility that Al Qaida fugitives have infiltrated Sinai.

Al Qaida has been suspected of targeting the MFO presence in Sinai. In August 2005, two Canadian peace-keepers were injured in a bombing near El Gorah. Recently, Egyptian security sources said El Arish was used as the base for Al Qaida.

In an unrelated development, the Palestinian Authority apparently foiled a car bombing against the Israeli border terminal facility at Karni at the eastern edge of the Gaza Strip. PA officers blocked the car and a shootout ensued with the injury of three officers. The insurgents escaped.


Copyright © 2006 East West Services, Inc.

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