Egypt police raid missile workshop, arrest man

CAIRO: Egyptian security forces raided a workshop in the Sinai peninsula they said was used to make rocket warheads, a security official said on Friday. Police found three rudimentary warheads and arrested a man during the raid in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zwaid, close to Egypt s border with the Gaza Strip. There were three warheads prepared, to be used for rudimentary rockets, said the official, adding police suspected they were destined to be smuggled to Gaza. A network of tunnels links Egypt with the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which Israel blockaded after the Islamist Hamas movement seized the enclave in a week of fighting in June 2007. Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza have regularly launched primitive rockets, made in Gaza, and more sophisticated Grad rockets into Israel. The tunnels are used on a regular basis for smuggling essential food and fuel to circumvent an Israeli blockade. Israel, which fought a devastating 22-day war with Hamas in December and January, says weapons are brought through the tunnels. Egypt has taken increasingly robust measures to close the tunnels. On Wednesday, Egypt s Prosecutor General announced the arrest of 49 people accused of having links with the Lebanese group Hezbollah and of plotting attacks in Egypt. A security official and the suspects lawyer told AFP they were also suspected of running arms to Hamas. Police found quantities of explosives in homes they had rented or bought in the Rafah border town, a security official said. -AFP