Israeli innuendo and concern for Sinai security fuel stepped up efforts to secure area
ISMAILIA: Two days after an Israeli minister accused Cairo of not providing enough security along the border with Gaza, Egyptian police found at least two tons of explosives in the Gebel Maghara area in the northern Sinai Peninsula and also large quantities of weapons, including anti-tank mines and rocket-propelled grenades in central Sinai.
The explosives were of the same type that had been used in previous bombings in Sinai, most recently in Dahab last April, in which twenty people were killed and ninety wounded.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters late on Monday the arms were found in two hideouts in the Libni mountain area in central Sinai, 100 km southwest of the Gaza Strip.
The police operation marks the fifth such discovery of weapon caches in Sinai and along the Egypt-Gaza border in just over a month.
In early November police sources reported finding at least two tons of explosives hidden in three separate caches in the Sinai village of Raythan.
The find comes less than 10 days after police along the Gaza border seized 195 crates of automatic weapons and ammunition believed to be readied for smuggling to Palestinian factions in the occupied territories.
Four men thought to be behind the smuggling operations were arrested in a subsequent security sweep of Sinai.
In late October, Israeli forces held off launching a major operation to seek and destroy tunnels used for arms and drugs smuggling along the Philadelphi Corridor, an 11 km stretch that is only 100 m wide.
But according to former Ambassador to Israel Mohammed Bassiouny, Egypt is also concerned about arms making their way back into Sinai, which has seen bombing attacks at tourist hotspots in the past two years killing more than 100 people.
The tunnels can be used both ways, he said, We don’t want weapons, drugs or people being smuggled into Egypt. [Therefore] we are opposed to the tunnels and we destroy them.
Bassiouny earlier told The Daily Star Egypt that Israel “might be forced to re-engage in the area if it believed Hamas was still effectively using the tunnels to smuggle weapons into Gaza.
Dr Mohammed Kadry Saeed, military expert at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, earlier said that reports of Egyptian police being moved into the area were part of efforts by the government to secure the region and prevent further acts of violence in the Sinai Peninsula.
“The current Egyptian redeployment is an effort to secure the tunnels . and prove to Israel that the smuggling going on in the border tunnels is not occurring with its tacit approval, Saeed told The Daily Star Egypt last week.
On Saturday, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s minister for strategic threats said Israel’s security depends in part on “taking back control of the Gaza-Egypt border to stop weapons smuggling.
Lieberman, considered a hardliner among Israeli politicians, said Egypt had not been doing enough to prevent arms smuggling to Palestinian factions, reportedly through a series of tunnels.
The Israeli minister’s remarks seemed to contradict earlier assurances from other members of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s cabinet.
At a session of the Israeli Political-Security cabinet in late October, Israeli officials pledged to increase cooperation with Egypt in order to reduce the smuggling of war materiel.
The cabinet also pledged to step up their efforts against Hamas in order to foil their efforts to strengthen themselves, prevent terrorist acts from the Gaza Strip, and halt the firing of missiles and mortars into Israeli territory, a statement issued by Israel s Foreign Ministry and given to The Daily Star Egypt earlier this month said.
