generalspeaking

Spawn of the Brotherhood

Egyptian helicopter gunships have hit suspected Islamic militant hideouts in the northern Sinai Peninsula for several days running. The Sinai has become more and more lawless over the past year and more. Under Mohammad Morsi, a general relaxation had taken effect, with no effort to maintain vigilance, the result being that Salafist Bedouin and al-Qaeda groups launched attacks against Egyptian police stationed there, and blew up gas pipelines supplying Jordan and Israel.

The restive border region between Egypt and Israel where militants have established strongholds and stockpiled large amounts of weapons, some smuggled through from Libya from looted military weapons caches during their civil war, has been the target. General Osama Askar of the 3rd Army informed news sources his troops had seized shoulder-fired Sam-7 anti-aircraft missiles. Discovered in a mosque and in homes of suspected al-Qaeda militants.

Thousands of shoulder-launched missiles had been liberated by Islamists taking advantage of Libyan arsenals in the 2011 civil war. Those Libyan missiles were smuggled into the Sinai, some have gone on through underground tunnels to Gaza, to benefit Hamas. The villages of el-Mahdiya and el-Moqataa on the outskirts of Rafah and Sheikh Zuweyid were targeted for airstrikes on Sunday.

U.S.-produced Apache helicopters struck shacks, houses, olive farms and vehicles used by militants.

According to Armed Forces spokesman Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali, helicopters provided air cover for "the biggest security operation" in the northern Sinai in years. 118 houses and farms used as hideouts were demolished; some of them used as smuggling tunnel depots. Village residents who hadn't seen foot soldiers in decades reported columns of trucks and armoured vehicles pouring into the area.

The army has been carrying out security operations in the Sinai, firing rockets at 'terrorist hotbeds' [Reuters]

All this activity, launched by the new Egyptian government against Hamas terrorists in Sinai, alongside the al-Qaeda militants, the Islamic Jihad groups and Salafist Bedouin, has given encouragement to Fatah, hoping that Hamas will suffer wounds it will be unable to recover from. Hamas has lost its benefactor in Mohammad Morsi, and with it funding from the Muslim Brotherhood, itself attempting to recover from recent disastrous setbacks.

The Brotherhood is seen as responsible for many of the hundreds of terrorist attacks mounted against the Egyptian police in the Sinai. An anti-Hamas group Tamarod (rebellion) has appeared in Gaza fashioned after the youthful anti-Morsi Tamarod movement in Egypt. The group in Gaza has called for a series of protests, issuing statements pledging to fight against the "repressive and suppressive" Hamas regime.

The founder of Tamarod, the Egyptian youth movement responsible for rallying street protests against former President Morsi, survived an attempted assassination on Monday, in Cairo. Gunmen opened fire at his car. Amro Badr, editor of the Tamarod website said he had himself received death threats forcing him to change his residence.

This incident followed a week after Interior Minister Mohammad Ibraham survived an assassination attempt.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, linked to al-Qaeda, and based in the Sinai Peninsula, claimed responsibility. "God has allowed your brothers in Ansar Beit al-Maqdis to shatter the security organization of the murderer Mohammed Ibrahim through a martyrdom operation" the group claimed in an online statement.

Apologizing in the statement "for not killing the tyrant", and pledging additional attacks against Ibraham and military commander General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

All of this without a doubt manipulated largely by the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Labels: Conflict, Egypt, Hamas, Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood, Sinai, Terrorism

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, September 10, 2013