CAIRO,
April 25, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – The attacks that jolted Egypt's
Sinai peninsula in less than two years culminating in the three blasts
that ripped through the resort town of Dahab Monday, April 24, unmask
a prevailing state of chaos and an increasingly fragile regime,
Egyptian experts said.
"The
bombings have exposed the fragility of the state and the crumbling
control of the regime," former assistant foreign minister
Abdullah El-Ashaal told IslamOnline.net on Tuesday, April 25.
Nabil
Abdel Fattah, a journalist and political expert, said the awkward
policies of the government have alienated the Egyptian people.
"There
is a yawning gap between the people and the ruling regime, which
helped create underground terror groups," he added.
Mohammad
El-Sayed Said, deputy head of Al-Aharm Center for Political and
Strategic Studies think tank, said corruption and lawlessness are
eating out the Egyptian social and economic infrastructure.
"The
regime started losing control over the country's economic, social and
political spheres," he said.
At
least 23 people died Monday when three explosions jolted the tiny town
of Dahab.
After
a lull of seven years following the shocking Luxor massacre in 1997,
terror attacks resumed in 2004 with the Taba bombings in Sinai, which
killed 34 people, including foreigners.
Last
July, a series of bombings in Sharm El-Sheikh, on the southern tip of
Sinai, killed at least 64 people, again mainly tourists.
Egyptian
authorities said the militants who carried out the bombings were
locals without international connections.
"Exhausted
Police"
 |
|
Shobaky said the main preoccupation of state security apparatuses now is how to stifle political pluralism.
|
Pundits
believe Egyptian police have become "exhausted" by political
tumult to do their original job.
"Security
forces continue to use preemptive strikes against the Muslim
Brotherhood," Abdel Fattah said, referring to the officially
banned but tolerated group that now has fifth of the parliament's
seats.
The
security apparatus is also closely following up Muslim-Christian
sectarian clashes, tensions between the judiciary and interior
ministry in the wake of the police assault on a prominent judge.
Omar
El-Shobaky, a political analyst, said the main preoccupation of state
security apparatuses now is how to stifle political pluralism.
"They
are interfering, though it is non of their business, in public life
through disrupting nascent parties, hunting down opposition figures,
assaulting reformist judges and cracking down on rights
organizations," he averred.
Foul
Play
Ashaal
said the interior ministry has reinforced police presence in Sinai in
the past 18 months, pointing the finger squarely at neighboring
Israel.
"It
is in Israel's interests to spark security chaos in Sinai to get a
foothold in the strategic region through [new] agreements and
understandings with the Egyptian officials," he said.
"It
is really intriguing how the attackers managed to infiltrate nine
Egyptian security checkpoints deep at the heart of Sharm El-Sheikh and
the roads leading to Dahab," noted the diplomat.
"The
absence of any security checkpoint along the Egyptian-Israeli borders
creates security lapses and a fertile ground for Israeli intelligence
services," Ashaal said.
Israel
withdrew from the strategic Sinai peninsula, which it had occupied ion
the 1967 war, under a peace treaty it signed with Egypt after its
defeat in the 1973 war.
The
Dahab attacks occurred one day before celebrations of the Sinai
Celebration Day, an official holiday in Egypt.
Al-Qaeda
Bugaboo
Ashaal
further believes the blasts in Sinai play well into the hands of the
United States.
"Washington
wants to prove that Al-Qaeda exists in Egypt to interfere in the
country's domestic affairs under the global war on terror
pretext."
Anwar
el-Hawwari, the deputy editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram's Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya
magazine, said US President George W. Bush was quick to condemn the
Dahab attacks and renew his pledge to fight terror as if Egypt was
under a US mandate.
Bush
condemned the explosions as "a heinous act against innocent
civilians."
"We
keep those who were injured in our thoughts and prayers, and I assure
the enemy this: We will stay on the offense, we will not waver, we
will not tire, we will bring you to justice for the sake of peace and
humanity."
Hawwari
said the regime wants also to play the terror card in a bid to skip
growing reform pressures.
Ashaal,
however, ruled out that the US was behind Dahab bombings to create
turmoil in the country as part of its new "constructive
chaos" policy unveiled by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to
destabilize countries opposing to Washington.
"This
is simply unthinkable because Egypt does not oppose the US, but to the
contrary it toes its line."
