Al-Qaida's infrastructure in Sinai once again surprised Egyptian intelligence. This is not an international attack. It is doubtful Al-Qaida's terror onslaught in Britain was coordinated with the attacks in Sharm el-Sheikh over the weekend. The two attacks should be seen as surges of terror taking place close in time.
The London attacks are unique because the terrorists are Muslim British citizens. They formed ties with Al-Qaida people in Pakistan and perhaps in North Africa as well.
Various intelligence services, including Israel's, detected the growth of radical Islam together with terror cells in Britain a long time ago. A Pakistani British citizen committed suicide in Mike's Place, a pub on Tel Aviv's promenade, two years ago and his colleague, another Pakistani-Briton, drowned off Tel Aviv's beach after apparently trying to carry out a suicide bombing.
The intelligence coordination between Britain and Israel with regards to terror is considered good, but Britain always tried to blame others for the growth of the Muslim terror cells in its midst, like Israel or the United States. Britain was also among the first in the European Union to support contacts with Hamas, although it is defined in Europe as a terror organization.
The attacks in Sharm el-Sheikh over the weekend are a painful blow, especially to the Egyptian government. Cairo assumed that if it treated the Sinai terror suspects moderately, Al-Qaida would grant it immunity. After the attack in Luxor in 1997, in which Al-Qaida men killed dozens of tourists at an antiquities site, President Hosni Mubarak took a hard line against terrorists. Hundreds of their supporters in Egypt suffered and the terror died down. However, after last year's attack at the Hilton Taba hotel, when 12 Israelis were killed (out of 30 fatalities), Egypt decided to try a gentler approach. There were arrests but no manhunts with firearms after the terrorists.
Egyptian intelligence was surprised to discover that Al-Qaida managed to lay an extensive net in Sinai. A great amount of arms and explosives were captured, probably smuggled from Sudan or Saudi Arabia, by sea. An attack after that was not classified by the Egyptians as a terror act.
Now it is clear this approach has not given Mubarak's government immunity. The recent attacks in Sharm were aimed mainly against the tourists in Egypt. The Egyptian intelligence failed to detect signs of the attack.
Only by chance were there no Israelis among the fatalities in Sharm. Sinai is full of Israeli tourists who are indifferent to the terror warning to avoid Sinai at this time. Thousands are thronging there, convinced that in case of an attack they would receive swift aid from Israel, as was the case after the Taba attack last year. |