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| Africa: North |
| Debka weighs in on Cairo bombings |
| 2005-04-30 |
| In the two Islamic terrorist attacks carried out two hours apart in Cairo Saturday, April 30, two of the three assailants were killed and 15 victims injured, including four tourists. Both clearly targeted foreigners three weeks after a suicide bomber killed three tourists in a Cairo bazaar. The latest twin attacks stand out as landmarks because of three unique features revealed here exclusively by DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources: 1. This was the first husband-and-wife suicide team ever mounted by al Qaeda or its associated organizations. These attacks were staged by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad whose leader is Ayman al Zuwahiri, Osama bin Laden's senior lieutenant. The first strike near the Egyptian Museum, a popular Cairo tourist attraction, was the work of Jihad member Ihab Yuseri, who was wanted by Egyptian police for complicity in the April 7 suicide bombing in a Cairo bazaar that killed three tourists. His wife and sister, both veiled, carried out the second attack on Old Cairo's Salah Salam Street, shooting up a tourist bus. The wife is believed to have been shot dead by Egyptian security and the sister captured. 2. A death team of two women is also a first in the Arab world. The only terrorist groups which have so far employed women suicide bombers are the Palestinian Fatah-al Aqsa Suicide Brigades and Hamas against Israelis and the Chechens against Russians. 3. Egyptian authorities are deliberately disseminating conflicting reports on the two incidents to create confusion. DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources have discovered exclusively that all three attacks this April were carried out by the same al Qaeda-Jihad Islami cell that attacked three Sinai resorts last October, killing 34, including 13 Israelis and injuring 150 holidaymakers. Despite Egyptian efforts to sow confusion, a substantial al Qaeda-Jihad Islami network is shown to have established itself in Egypt proper this past year. It has begun to carry out its first operations inside the country. Further revelations about the network have been uncovered by DEBKAfile. The Egyptian security probe of the Cairo bazaar bombing on April 7 led to a clandestine terrorist network working out of two centers, Mena, a southern town teeming with Muslim extremist factions and the Nile Delta town of Qalyub just north of Cairo. Most of its members are science or engineering students at various universities and research institutes across Egypt. Only two out of several dozen were positively identified and arrested last week. One died under torture Friday, April 29. News of his death is thought to have impelled Ihab Yuseri to set up the two terrorist attacks the next day. Two key points stand out for the Egyptian handling of the rising terrorist threat in their midst. A. Their efforts to conceal the true perpetrators of last year's Sinai attacks did more harm than good. The local cell used the official campaign of misdirection to cover its preparations for more terror plots. B. The Egyptian intelligence and security authorities' failure to uncover and smash this network in the seven months since the Sinai attacks must rank as one of the great fiascos of the year in the world's campaign against terrorism. According to our information, between 300 and 400 Sinai Bedouin and Palestinians are still languishing in Egyptian jails without trial in the belief that they may give up some information on the bombers. So far, nothing has been gleaned from any of them. There are also lessons for Israel in the Cairo episodes. DEBKAfile was alone in exposing al Qaeda's role in the Sinai bombings. Israeli officials kept quiet out of consideration for Egypt. Just before the Passover holiday, Jerusalem released a general warning to Israeli travelers to stay away from Egypt and Sinai. It was not effective. Tens of thousands visited Sinai and Egypt too nonetheless, proving that denial is not the most effective weapon for fighting al Qaeda or any other terrorist threat, including the Palestinian variety. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #17 Nuclear power, now. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-30 11:04:08 PM |
| #16 IIRC, there was also some involvement on the part of several Libyans, among others. There was also some heavy-handedness by Mubarak immediately after the shooting, where several of Mubarak's enemies suddenly were found floating in the Nile. Sadat was murdered first because he made peace with Israel, and secondly because he was beginning to crack down on certain mosques and meeting houses of people he considered his enemies. We live with the results. The best thing we could do with Egypt is to hit Aswan with a tac nuke, floated down the Nile from the Egyptian/Sudan border area. A good Seal/SF team could pull it off and get out before anything happened. The entire world would be wondering who did it, and the list of possibilities would be endless. Of course, the most important thing we need to do is to cut off the flow of money. That means Saudi Arabia and Iran. No one else has the cash to spread around like those two. As for oil, I think we'd find a way to manage. Didn't the Maltans and Japanese learn to use charcoal to drive their automobiles? We have whole states covered in coal. The longer we wait, however, the harder the shock is going to be on everyone. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2005-04-30 10:59:57 PM |
| #15 I've run across a link that indicates the group "responsible" for Sadat's assassination was calling itself Al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) at the time - led by Karam Zohdy. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-04-30 10:58:51 PM |
| #14 Egypt looks to me a lot like Romania. The West liked Ceacescu cos he stood up to the Russians (or at least he pretended to), but the people hated him. When he fell it happened in weeks. Mubarak is another Ceacescu? |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-04-30 10:41:47 PM |
| #13 Bottom line is that Egypt at least since Nasser's passing has been ruled by a basket-case government that barely governs. A lot like Pakistan. Or for that matter, any of the other African regimes that (mis)rule, and steal, and squander, and slaughter their people and their own. Egypt is as African as any other nightmare basket-case kleptocratic butcher African state. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-30 10:34:26 PM |
| #12 Oops, went out to eat... Lol, you guys don't ask much... Dan, you can fill in about the charities and the skimming and corruption? I was led to believe that the money played a large role. I'd like to know if you have any cites that support what I came to believe? Anyway, I'll post what I can recall. Okay, it was Oct, 1981, and Mubarak was "his hand-picked successor". The blame was put upon the Egyptian Brotherhood -- the very first reference to religious extremists, meaning Islamists, outside of the Israeli - Paleo situation that I can recall. Note that this predates even the most basic Internet functionality by a full decade. Everything online was, at the very least, a full decade old, thus fully "revised" in hindsight, before it ever went online. What I recall, that made me begin to believe that Mubarak was actually not Sadat's right-hand, but an accomplice in his murder, was a television documentary. Naturally, I presume it was PBS's FrontLine. I'm on PBS.org looking now. TONS of Sadat links and no guarantee that it wasn't "fixed" later, before it was placed online. Additionally, and no I can't cite links to what didn't exist, I recall more than one article exploring it. The gist: Mubarak and his motives and connections - specifically the total breakdown of security that day when the gunmen broke off from the parade to chase Sadat down in the viewing stand and kill him. If you've seen the tape, it took them almost a minute from the time they jumped off the truck and ran toward the viewing stand until they actually caught him and killed him. In the personal security world, that's forever. His security was gone. Not there. Poof. They were military, like Mubarak, not Egyptian Brotherhood. How was it that they were missing? Who could have called them off? Etc. Religious extremists were convenient tools, ably assisted by someone on the inside of Govt with the authority and ability to call of Sadat's personal security. I also recall an interview with Sadat's widow - who refused to answer certain questions, although she was extremely outspoken otherwise, because she said answering would be her death, as she put it. Back then, I subscribed to Time, NewsWeek, US News & World Report, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, and Science News. Likely that whatever I read was in one of those. So I'm digging on PBS to see if I can pick up the thread of what made me a believer. You might find other cites, of course. Under the circumstances, almost 24 yrs later, that's all I can offer you at the moment. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-04-30 10:19:26 PM |
| #11 The ur-terrorists are the Muslim Brotherhood. Born and bred in Egypt, and still going strong. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-30 10:19:23 PM |
| #10 I hear you .com-- and thanks a thousand times for your passion and insight-- but it seems as if Egypt we've dug ourselves a very deep hole. It's going to take many years for us to get closer to the surface. W's approach is a good start but IINM we've got very little credibility among the good Egyptians, the pro-democracy reformers, and that hurts. I've no idea what the next step should be; all I can say is that the bandwidth we waste on Fwance and Gewmany needs to be redirected, ASAP, to crucial swing nations like Egypt. Ditto for India, and Philippines and Indonesia, maybe Russia as well. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-04-30 10:17:58 PM |
| #9 I'm wrapping up a dossier on the Egyptian Islamist groups, and it was a huge conspiracy and 3 years of planning that led to Sadat's death. What eventually became al-Zawahiri's group was a major part of that conspiracy. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-04-30 10:12:10 PM |
| #8 Ditto, Phil. .com, could you explain the connection? I believe that some Mooselimb Brotherhood outlet was decidedly responsible. Or did Mubarak pull off a mighty scam? |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-04-30 9:11:23 PM |
| #7 I was unaware of any alleged connection between Sadat's death and Mubarak. Please give details. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-04-30 8:57:23 PM |
| #6 Overlapped with you, Dr Steve. Thx. You speaka de truth, bro. We endure grief every day from making hard choices - choices unpopular with us, cuz they cost us - effort or money or convenience, lol! I think we're better than our government, by a wide, no make that HUGE margin. I think we should all still get mad when we're lied to - not laugh it off, stand up and support what we believe in - not wait for someone else to lead the charge and make it easier and more popular / acceptable before we act, work hard - on a conscious level - to battle cynicism by fighting the habit of taking the easy way out. To borrow and mangle Frank Herbet: Fear isn't the mind-killer, that passes. Cynicism is the real mind-killer. It persists and enters a feedback loop that creates Moonbats. Willfully self-deceiving idiots. Tools of anyone with (yet another) simple answer. We screwed up in supporting Mubarak - and I don't really give a shit why it was "okay" at the time - apologies for the sound of that, but I truly mean it. We knew he was a murderer, complicit in Sadat's death, an asshole dictator-to-be, and we knew there would be consequences. It's a habit we have to break - or else. It's our souls on the line, IMO. Lol, sounds so over-the-top dramatic and corny. But corny isn't bad - it's sincere and honest. It's the essence of anti-cynical. I like loyalty, honesty, principles, and corny shit. They rock, heh. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-04-30 8:56:41 PM |
| #5 Thx, tt. :) Painful to express, so it took "forever" to write. Apologies for what I left out. I do believe our current divide, the fact that we have Moonbats in our midst, is directly attributable to the cowardly and stupid accommodation mentality that has been forever enshrined at State and practiced to the hilt by simply gutless government - I can think of no better description. Please wade in if you're inclined. I know I missed stuff, important stuff. Sigh. I feel particularly old, at the moment. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-04-30 8:36:04 PM |
| #4 .com, I agree with what you wrote. But one point: we bought into Mubarek because, when Sadat was axed, 1) the Cold War was still on 2) it wasn't that long after the Shah fell, and 'stability' was the mantra word in the West 3) we were scared silly that if Egypt fell into chaos that the oil spigot would get turned off. Now we all know better, eh? But we didn't then. GWB has the opportunity to make that clear by telling Mubarek and his son that we aren't going to support them, and by the way we feel we're not getting quite the return on that $2 billion a year that we've been investing. I think GWB understands what you wrote. Now whether he feels he can pull it off with Iraq still open, Iran and N Korea making goofy faces, and a pack of yappy mutts nipping his heels at home is another matter. I'd like to see Babyface Assad and Mubarek fall on the same day. Poetic justice. Heh. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2005-04-30 8:35:51 PM |
| #3 Amen, .com. |
| Posted by: too true 2005-04-30 8:23:53 PM |
| #2 I'd This pot has had a dictator's lid on it for a long time. The killers of Sadat have ruled all that time - very badly. We have blindly supported the regime for some many-times-morphed perceived gain... stalemate, actually. [JoeM impersonation rant] This is where I get worked up about State and all of the others who put their "pragmatism" and "realpolitik" and "situational / momentary convenience" ahead of our principles. That we are hated on the street in Cairo isn't surprising. This is not to accept the bullshit notion that something like the 9/11 or Beslan or Zarqawi attacks are justified. They're not. The murder or persecution of innocents is and always will be dead wrong and worthy of serious retribution - of the guilty perpetrators. Additionally, the extrapolation of bad governance to the American people is bullshit. Politicians, even those who start out well, sometimes fall in love with themselves and believe their shit doesn't stink... Clinton, Carter, and Johnson are the most egregious examples of this in my lifetime. Hypocritical power-hungry fuckwits who saddled us all with the baggage generated by taking the easy choices, instead of doing their jobs and protecting the interests of the US, both at the time and in the future. Toss in the legislators who went along and the moron advisers who peddled this obviously flawed approach. We have to undo our mistakes, most of them installed by the lame-assed hypocritical Donk administrations named above, and live by the words we speak. Nothing less. Bush is pushing in this direction - against a huge tide of cowardly and gutless anything-BUT-statesmen - making our national policy begin to reflect the best in us - via the Bush Doctrine. Egypt, and the accommodation of an asshole like Mubarak, who was party to the murder of the best Arab I've ever seen on the world stage, Sadat, is beyond appalling to me. The difference between Mubarak and Ayatollah Khomeini or Saddam is basically trivial: he's more hypocritical and can be purchased. Yeah, yeah, I know - I've heard all the gutless turds and their easy answers. But who thinks we don't pay far more dearly later for those choices than if we had made the hard choice up front and shunned them for the assholes and brutal despots they are? It's an offense to our principles and gives credence to our detractors. May the accommodaters burn forever for saddling all of us with such asinine and compromising decisions. They are party to 9/11 and Beslan and the cynicism that led to our Moonbat Professors and Tranzi MSM and the traction they bestow on Muzzy insanity. This gap between what Americans stand for and what we sometimes do demands correction. If I can make the hard choices, the inconvenient choices, the painful choices, because I know they're the right thing to do, and know that nothing less will do, so can my government. So keep it up, George. Terminate the gutless short-term gain / long-term insane choices of the past. Redirect our government and policies to align them with our values. That's the core reason I voted for you. You got some balls and know right from wrong. More, please. [/JoeM impersonation rant] Sucks, I know. Something that bugs me. A LOT. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-04-30 8:17:25 PM |
| #1 It makes sense that at some point things would start to cut loose in Egypt. First of all, the place has a huge number of potential troublemakers, and an even larger number of Moslem Brotherhood types who might back their play. It is a Sunni domain, so has Wahabbis a-plenty. I suspect that either the Egyptian government is going to come down on them like a ton of bricks, their traditional response, or Egypt is going to be going up in a sheet of flame. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-04-30 7:24:04 PM |