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Bedouin Arms Smugglers See Opening in Sinai

(Wall Street Journal) Matt Bradley and Joshua Mitnick - Israeli officials are concerned that a power vacuum in Cairo and the withdrawal of police forces from the Sinai Peninsula will embolden the Bedouin tribes who help smuggle weapons to Hamas militants in Gaza. In a sign of rising tensions, Bedouin in northern Sinai on Friday used rocket-propelled grenades to attack the headquarters of Egypt's state security in El Arish, according to witnesses. Earlier in the week, Mohammed Abu Ras, the leader of a Bedouin tribe who enjoyed friendly relations with the Egyptian forces, was gunned down outside a meeting between tribal leaders and Egyptian army generals. Sinai Bedouin are also widely suspected of having bombed a natural-gas pipeline that connects Egypt with Jordan and Syria in June. Menachem Zafrir, a former civilian security liaison at the border farming cooperative at Nitzanei Sinai, said he has noticed in the past week that Egyptian border forces are no longer facing toward Israel. They have turned around toward Sinai, he said, "to make sure the Bedouin don't slaughter them."
2011-02-07 08:53:09
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