Our sources disclose that since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo on July 3, Egyptian troops confront surging Islamist violence at four current flashpoints in Sinai, two near the Israeli border. One is the Rafah area south of the Gaza Strip where the Salafists are tackling Egyptian forces engaged in blocking the smuggling tunnels running contraband into the Palestinian enclave. The commander of Egypt’s Second Army, Gen. Ahmed Wasfi, is convinced by incoming intelligence that the Muslim Brotherhood unseated two weeks ago in Cairo and its Libyan allies are conniving with the Salafist Bedouin of Sinai and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami of the Gaza Strip to stage a violent uprising against the Egyptian army and security forces in Sinai. The events of the past 24 hours confirm him in this conviction. Saturday, July 13, the Egyptian army intercepted and destroyed three arms convoys crossing from Libya into Egypt on their way to the Gaza Strip. The next day, armed Salafists conducted a multiple onslaught on Egyptian Border Police camps, checkpoints and patrols opposite the Israel region of Halutza. The residents of Bnei Netzarim, Naveh, Yevul, Dekel, Avshalom and Sdeh Avraham were told to stay in protected areas and local security squads placed on alert, in case the Salafist assailants stormed across the border to attack Israeli targets. Overnight, the IDF bolstered military units in the area. In the process, an Israeli Hermes 450 drone crashed while on surveillance duty over the embattled area. The Israeli Air Force reported that a technical fault caused the drone to fly out of control. All Sunday, the Egyptian army sent extra forces to bolster the engineering units engaged in destroying the smuggling tunnels carrying arms, fighters and consumer goods into the Gaza Strip for more than a decade, which provided the Hamas-ruled regime with a major source of revenue. Orders from the high command in Cairo were to step up the pressure on Hamas and Jihad Islami. And so, the Egyptian army targeted a number of tunnels on the Rafah border used to smuggle fuel to Gaza. Without gas, their combat mobility will be sharply reduced.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 15:53:12 +0000
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