See below the link to a short comprehensive analytical article on an important hot subject, "Al-Qaeda In The Sinai Peninsula," by Robin Simcox.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/an-emerging-threat-al-qaeda-in-the-sinai-peninsula-analysis-31082011/
As I was interviewed for this paper and not all what I told the author could be cited, I would like to clarify some important points.
The statement that "the security situation has ‘collapsed’ and the Sinai is ‘on the way to becoming a failed region’" refers to the post-Mubarak period. In my opinion, if the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood will take control of the Egyptian parliament in the future elections, it can be evaluated that we will witness the same situation as in Gaza after Hamas took control of the Strip: the flourishing under their ideological and strategic umbrella of a myriad of jihadist and salafist violent groups which will find in Sinai, bordering Israel and the Hamas controlled Palestinian territory, the natural breeding ground for their terrorist and insurgency tactics, against Israel and the West. The Multinational Force Organization will be one of their main targets.
I am not at all sure that the pipeline bombings were financed by Iran and Hezbollah, but there are good chances that the Popular Resistance Committees' (PRC) attack on southern Israel was indeed supported and perhaps devised by these two radical partners, who have a vested interest in destabilizing the sensitive strategic Israel-Egypt relations, on the background of the Arab uprisings and especially the rebellion in Syria.
As for the background of al-Qaeda's "revival" in Egypt and more specifically the Sinai, see my 2006 article, "Egypt as a New Front of al-Qaeda," at:
http://www.ict.org.il/Articles/tabid/66/Articlsid/213/currentpage/14/Default.aspx
Ely Karmon
Ely Karmon, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scholar
International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and
The Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at
The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC)
Herzlyia, Israel
Tel.: 972-9-9527277
Cell.: 972-52-2653306
Fax.: 972-9-9513073, 972-9-7716653
E-mail: ekarmon@idc.ac.il
Web: http://www.ict.org.il/
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