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Rantings of a Sandmonkey

Be forewarned: The writer of this blog is an extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled sandmonkey. If this is your cup of tea, please enjoy your stay here. If not, please sod off

Saturday, June 18, 2005

This is found nowhere in the Egyptian Media

I keep looking for confirmation in the egyptian newspapers for this, but so far i've found Zilch. Egyptian forces swept the Sinai peninsula Friday for men suspected of deadly October 2004 resort bombings, sparking clashes that left a policeman and a gunman dead, security sources said. I thought they already arrested all the people who acted in the Taba Bombings. Guess they lied about that too. Acting on a tip, 1,000 police launched an operation in the centre of the Red Sea peninsula and were met with armed resistance from the suspects and the Bedouin tribes protecting them, the sources said. The reason why the Bedouin tribes are protecting them? Security services detained hundreds of people in the Sinai region following the bombings, sparking a string of protests from detainees' relatives and criticism from rights groups. Most of those detained naturally have not been released yet, nor were granted any form of trial or due process. Yay for the emergency law! Joking aside, this was not a wise move by the egyptian security authorities, you know, to piss off the Sinai Bedouin tribes. Those people- whom I know a lot personally- are hardcore: They have their own rules, they don't recognize any state authority, they are armed, and they know the desert like no one else because they make most of their money from smuggling. They can strike, inflict maximum damage and disappear like that, and the IDF forces that occupied Sinai from 1967 till 1973 can attest to that. They security authorities better not push it, because if this escalates, it will be a war they will most certainly not win!