Miss Mabrouk of Egypt

Check the archives too - a lot of good stuff to enjoy. Me myself? Off to new adventures in the blogosphere, if time permits.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

The Battle for Sinai -p. II

- Third ‘landmine’ hits police in Sinai search.
- 15 armed terrorists in fierce resistance.
- Police killing previously blamed on ‘landmine’ is now explosives related to bombs in Sharm El-Sheikh.

A ‘landmine’ damaged a police vehicle in Northern Sinai on Saturday. The explosion injured a police officer and a local civilian, a Bedouin with tracking expertise. It is the third ‘landmine’ blast since the hunt-down began last week. Explosions on Wednesday and Thursday damaged three police vehicles, killed two police officers and injured at least five policemen and a civilian.

A security official says the ‘landmine’ explosives are the same used in the deadly string of attacks in Taaba, last year and in the July Sharm bombings.

Some 3-4,000 security personnel are involved in the search for a local group with connections to militant Islamists.

Fierce resistance is put up by a group of around 15 heavily armed “terrorists and runaway criminals,” says the leading daily Al-Ahram despite a ban on media coverage of the probe into the Sharm bombings. The suspected ringleader is said to be a notorious trafficker of arms and drugs.

The wanted man, Salem Khodr al-Shnub, have “phoned a local official to deny any connection with the Sinai terror attacks and offered to turn himself in.”

More than 500 people are still held in connection with a ‘landmine’ blast in Sinai two weeks ago when two Canadian peace-observers were injured. Around 200 detainees have recently been released.