Arab on Arab Terror

The current spate of terrorism in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq is not happening
by chance. More Arab on Arab violence is occurring because of the fact
that the US and Israeli domestic environments are harder nuts to crack. As
part of their ideology al Qaeda have always intended to target the Arab
regimes, in order to undermine them and eventually replace them with a new
Caliphate ruled by sharia law. Since the West is a more difficult target they
are attempting to carry out this phase now.
While there has been no major terrorist attack in the USA since 9/11,
there have been thousands in Iraq, many in Egypt, and a few in Jordan.
Overall thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the chaos of Iraq, and this
is the current prime target of al Qaeda terrorism. Now that the Iraqi
Government has selected its new Prime Minister, in his latest video Abu Musab
al Zarqawi has come out into the open appealing to Sunni Arabs as the leader
of the insurgency. But, it will become less popular to choose the
murderous terrorists bent on civil war now that the government is in place.
In Egypt, the Mukhabarat secret service, although they have a fierce
reputation, are obviously not up to the challenge. The latest explosions in
Dahab that killed 20 Egyptians and 3 tourists are the work of an Egyptian
cell, probably sponsored by al Qaeda, that is working mainly to bring down the
Egyptian Government. They want to do this by frightening away tourists, since
tourist income is one of the main sources of foreign currency, particularly in
Sinai. The Beduin face a contradiction, as ardent Muslims they undoubtedly
resent the influx of many tourists to their pristine and isolated land.
Having visited Dahab in 1977, when it was still under Israeli control, I can
vouch for the fact that it was beautiful and isolated then, and the Beduin
were quite friendly and fascinated by these strange Westerners. Now
they depend on them for their livelihood. The general opinion is that the
local Beduin would not do this, and in fact the three suicide bombers are
reported to have been computer students from northern Sinai. Once again
the idea of poor, uneducated, starving peasants being the suicides is proven
false.
Today there were reports of two suicide bombings in northern Sinai targeting
officials of the Egypt-Israel armistice commission. No doubt most people have
forgotten that there is still a UN (mainly US) force that monitors the treaty
between Israel and Egypt to ensure that the Sinai remains demilitarized.
However, in these cases the suicides were unsuccessful and apparently only
killed themselves.
In Jordan, the corresponding Mukhabarat is much more efficient and not only
did they find a cache of weapons stored by Hamas, presumably to support an
insurgency against the monarchy, but they also intercepted an order from the
head of the military wing of Hamas in Syria to terrorists in Jordan to target
the Royal family. Now a Lebanese paper has reported that they have evidence
that the original order came from Khaled Mashaal, the Head of Hamas in Syria,
who once lived in Jordan, and whose life was saved by King Hussein's
intervention when the Israelis tried to assassinate him. This situation has
caused friction between Jordan and Syria, that is not an unusual occurrence.
Although there has been at least one major bombing at a Hotel wedding in
Amman, that was attributed to al Qaeda, and Zarqawi in particular, Hamas
has not so far been active in carrying out terrorist acts in Jordan. But,
since they currently have a self-imposed ceasefire with Israel, that is in
their own interests, perhaps they decided to focus on Jordan instead.
Meanwhile, as Hamas is intent on undermining Jordan, and may have a hand in
the terrorist activities from Gaza to Egypt, many Europeans are intent on
rewarding them for being the responsible democratically elected government of
the PA. I wonder if Norway will be so free to meet with Hamas representatives
now that Jordan and not only Israel is under threat of attack by them.