Egyptian Salafist Considers Sinai The ’Next Frontier’
By Mohamed Fadel Fahmy for Al-Monitor. (Fadel Fahmy is an Egyptian/Canadian freelance journalist and author of Baghdad Bound and Egyptian Freedom Story).
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/egyptsalafistsanaiusconsulatebenghazi.html#ixzz2PCWofWIl
“The Egyptian revolution came as a “gift from god,” as one of the hundreds of jihadists released from prison after the uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 called it. Stockpiles of weapons have made their way into Egypt through the neighboring porous Libyan and Sudanese borders since the region has fallen into a state of lawlessness, which came with the shake-up of the security apparatuses in scarred nations searching for their new identities. Al Qaeda inspired groups in the Sinai Peninsula have puzzled the international community with their bold statements and videos posted on the net, but the various Egyptian security branches have not been able to pinpoint their direct involvement in any of the many military operations and kidnappings, or the weapons smuggling to Gaza through an intricate web of tunnels located in North Sinai, close to the Israeli border. The audacity of such militant groups has left Egypt and its neighboring countries with a national security threat that is brewing by the day, as the wave of violence and killing is broadcast on a daily basis on Egypt’s dozens of television channels and talk-shows.
Obtaining transparent information, specifically in national security cases, in Egypt has become a challenge, and the terrorism case known in the press as the “Nasr City Cell” is no exception.”