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.