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| Egypt kills 'Sinai militant head' | ||||
| 2006-05-09 | ||||
| Egyptian police say they have shot and killed the suspected ringleader of an Islamic militant group blamed for last month's deadly bombing in Dahab. Nasser Khamis al-Mallahi died in a shootout in the northern Sinai town of al-Arish, close to the Gaza border. Mr Mallahi was named as head of a group blamed for the triple bombing in Dahab, which killed at least 23 people. Authorities also suspect the group of bombing the Sinai resorts of Taba and Sharm al-Sheikh in the past 18 months. Security forces said they surrounded Mr Mallahi in an olive grove to the south of el-Arish, after receiving a tip-off. Lt Gen Essam el-Sheikh, head of police in northern Sinai, told the Associated Press news agency that an accomplice, named as Mohammed Abdullah Abu Grair, was arrested in the same operation.
Additional from DEBKA: (Salt alert)The Jerusalem warning midnight Monday, May 8, cited “a critical kidnap threat.” DEBKAfile’s counter-terror forces report it was issued after a concentrated Egyptian siege force failed in a long effort to pull in the al Qaeda cell responsible for bombing attacks in Sinai – in Dahab and El Arish last month and in Taba and Sharm el-Sheikh in the last two years. Tuesday, the Egyptians reported Nasser al-Malakhi was killed in a shootout in an olive grove near El Arish and an accomplice was detained. In its latest edition on May 5, DEBKA-Net-Weekly named al-Malakhi, an el Arish lawyer of 41, as head of the Sinai network and reported that Egyptian intelligence chief, Gen. Omar Suleiman, had been put in command of the special operations dragnet for the al Qaeda cells serving under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. DEBKAfile adds: Al-Malakhi captured alive would have been a valuable asset to the Egyptian investigation of al Qaeda’s Sinai-Egypt-Gaza network and leads to its 200-300 members - Egyptians, Palestinians and Bedouin (compared with Zarqawi’s 700-strong terrorist hard core in Iraq).
DEBKA-Net-Weekly 252 also revealed: The failure of Egyptian security and intelligence services to track the cells and their leaders down since their first attacks on Taba and Nuweiba on Oct. 7, 2004 and subsequently at Sharm el-Sheikh on July 22, 2005, the network has been able to spread its wings across the Sinai Peninsula up to the western shores of the Suez Canal and Gulf of Suez. A cluster of operational terror cells is based in and around Ismailiya, the mouth of the key world trading waterway of Suez, lifeline of EgyptÂ’s economy and main crossing point between Sinai and Cairo. More strongholds are located further south along the banks of the Gulf of Suez. This footholds allow Zarqawi to exert a stranglehold on the worldÂ’s commercial shipping, its oil tankers and warships..
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| Posted by:Steve |