Media Blackout on Sharm Bomber Hunt

National media are not allowed to report on the probe into the 23 July attack in Sharm El-Sheik that killed almost 70 people.

… from now on, we cannot publish anything. The rest of the world will be able to talk about this issue except for the people who are the most affected by it," said Hisham Kassem, Al-Masri Al-Yom.

Information, often conflicting, during the past two weeks has mostly originated from unofficial sources. Yesterday, the attorney general said the ban is imposed to protect the work of the judiciary.

Claims by interior ministry officials that extensive efforts had led to the capture of the masterminds behind the attack were contradicted by information from unofficial sources.

It was further questioned after two explosions in Sinai in two days killed two police men and wounded two others. Officials said the explosions were caused by land-mines left behind from previous Arab-Israeli wars.

The explosions followed a sweep of Sinai by 3,000 security personnel, or more, that captured some 650 local residents, mostly in and around the north coast town of El-Arish, near Gaza.

Quote AFP: Kassem said authorities were afraid that leaks on the perpetrators of the deadly bombings and the way they were carried out could expose cracks in the state security apparatus.

The authorities want to avoid embarrassing leaks on those involved in the bombings ... But at the same time the media ban is also a way of concealing the state's failure to find the culprits," he said.

Egypt’s Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told the NYT the country is working on two theories; the first being that local residents in Sinai are upset by the mass-arrests following last year’s string of attacks on the east-Sinai coast. The second theory, that local terrorists have made connections to networks of international terrorism, is less likely according to the PM.