Egypt Gets Tough in Sinai In Wake of Resort Attacks

Officials Focus on Local Group; Others See Signs of Outside Aid

ARISH, Egypt -- Dozens of big, green prisoner-transport vans lined the highway, rolling east from the Suez Canal into the desert dunes and crags of the Sinai Peninsula. In this land populated mostly by nomads and goats, police checkpoints dotted the roads.

The foray of troops and police forces into Sinai in September represented the Egyptian government's continuing response to the bombings of hotels, tourist camps, parking lots and marketplaces during the past year in Taba and Sharm el-Sheikh, two resort towns on Sinai's Red Sea coast.

Egyptian authorities, in a reversal of their earlier assessment, say the car bomb attacks, though nine months apart, were the work of a single organization with roots in Sinai and in extremist Islamic ideology -- but with no connections to worldwide terrorist networks. The so-far nameless group, the Egyptians say, combines lawless Bedouin bands and dedicated Muslim rebels from within Egypt. The findings, if accurate, suggest that the bombings represent a worrisome revival of homegrown political violence aimed at civilians, which has a long history in Egypt.

Officials say their investigation turned up no evidence of training in Afghanistan or Pakistan, no recruiting or logistics work in Muslim communities in Europe, no outside financing and no direct ties to al Qaeda or its leader, Osama bin Laden.

"The training was in Sinai, the vehicles used were stolen in Sinai, and the technology used is available in Sinai mines. We have not found any foreign involvement," said Gen. Ahmad Omar, spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Ministry officials said that all the names of known suspects were relayed to foreign intelligence allies and Interpol and that none showed up on anyone's lists.

Yet the bombings, which together killed more than 100 Egyptians and foreigners, shared key characteristics of al Qaeda actions. They hit high-profile targets that are important to the economy. The dates of the attacks contained political symbolism -- the bombings in Taba occurred on Oct. 6, the anniversary of Egypt's 1973 war with Israel, while those in Sharm el-Sheikh came on July 23, the date the Egyptian monarchy was overthrown by Gamal Abdel Nasser 53 years ago. The bombers were able to hatch plans freely in north and central Sinai, a remote and largely ignored section of the country.

"People speak of al Qaeda when they should be speaking of an al Qaeda model," said Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islam for the government-sponsored Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

The conclusion that the bombings were rooted in Sinai would seem to make things easier for the authorities, but Egypt's long history indicates otherwise. From the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Middle East's prototypical radical Islamic group, in the 1920s, violent groups have emerged seemingly out of nowhere. After two decades of intense crackdowns on radical Muslim groups, the emergence of a violent group in Sinai was a surprise, officials say. "It's extremely difficult to monitor a mountainous area. We need to develop control of the security situation," Omar said.

Next door, Israel has been closely monitoring the situation. The stakes for the Israelis are high: After the withdrawal of Israel's troops from the Gaza Strip, Egypt and the Palestinians are in charge of policing the border with the Palestinian enclave.

In Israel, senior military intelligence officials say they have no reason to dispute the Egyptian theory that Bedouin tribesmen in Sinai carried out the bombings. But they also say the attacks might have been planned or assisted by foreign organizations, such as al Qaeda.

Israeli officials say the complexity of each operation -- involving multiple, almost simultaneous explosions -- points to possible foreign assistance. Israeli military intelligence officers say the cars used in the Sharm el-Sheikh bombing were rigged with explosives in Arish, then taken overland through the desert to the attack site rather than over well-monitored roads.

Two cells working within the same "terrorist infrastructure" carried out the bombings, according to senior Israeli military intelligence officers working with Egyptian officials on the investigation. Israeli officials say the Sharm el-Sheikh bombers learned from mistakes made at Taba: Chassis numbers on the cars used in Sharm el-Sheikh were removed; such numbers were used to trace the owner of the truck involved in the Taba Hilton bombing, leading to a number of arrests.