Egypt is the cradle of Sunni Islamist radicalism, but since the Luxor terrorist attack in November 1997, in which 58 foreigners and four Egyptians were killed, there has been no significant jihadist activity, despite al-Qaeda's return to the Middle East in the wake of the war in Iraq. All this began to change in September 2003. At that time, Egyptian police arrested 23 suspected Islamist militants who allegedly sympathized with al-Qaeda and sought to carry out attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere. The group included 19 Egyptians, a Turk, a Malaysian, an Indonesian and three Bangladeshis-all students at Cairo's Al-Azhar University.(1)
After seven years of a de facto timeout from terrorist operations conducted on Egyptian soil, the new jihadist campaign against Egypt began with the first attacks in Sinai, on October 7, 2004, targeting Israeli tourists in the Sinai Peninsula and killing at least 34 persons and injuring over 150. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a heretofore unknown al-Qaeda affiliate group claimed responsibility.
| My instinct tells me that the Azzam Brigades are a generic false moustache name for Zark's very underrated al-Tawhid organization. |
Then, on March 29, 2005 an Egyptian man stabbed and wounded two Hungarian tourists in Cairo in revenge for Western policies towards Iraqis and Palestinians. This was followed soon after by the April 7, 2005 bombing near the Khan al-Khalili bazaar in Cairo, which killed three tourists and wounded 18 other bystanders. Egyptian authorities initially announced that the bomber, Hassan Rafaat Bashandi acted alone, but then other three suspects were arrested, one of whom died in police custody.
| That's just a reminder to us outsider watchers not to place too much reliance on the accuracy of data, especially when it's translated from Arabic. |
Two weeks later, Ihab Yousri Yassin, pursued by the police, launched himself from the bridge behind the Egyptian museum in Cairo and subsequently detonated a bomb, wounding seven, including two Israelis, an Italian and a Swede. Soon after this incident, Yassin's sister and his fiancée armed with guns opened fire on a tourist bus in the Sayyida Aisha neighborhood. This marked the first time that a woman had ever engaged in Islamist violence in Egypt.
Mohammed Mahdi Akef, general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, condemned the attacks. Brotherhood leader Isam al-Aryan claimed Egypt had reached a "boiling point," due to the lack of political reform and said the involvement of women was an indicator of popular despair.(2)
| That's merely self-serving on their part. There is a Muslim Brotherhood danger to Egypt, and Hosni is managing to make it more pronounced due to his inability to choose between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. The takfiri threat is separate — takfir isn't part of the MB line of patter. |
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