TEL AVIV, Israel, May 9 (UPI) -- Israeli intelligence seems to have gotten wind of an imminent terror attack in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, 11 days before presidents, ministers, senior officials and businessmen from various countries meet in Sharm el-Sheikh.
The counter-terrorism division in Israel's National Security Council Tuesday urged all Israelis to leave the Sinai "immediately."
The warning, broadcast and relayed through the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center's website, said that the "threat to kidnap Israelis on the Sinai's coast has become much more severe and concrete in recent days. The counter-terror staff vigorously advises all Israelis in the Sinai to leave the area immediately."
Channel 1 TV said the warning was issued following intelligence that a Palestinian squad crossed the border from Gaza to the Sinai and is near the coast.
Brig. Gen. Elkana Har-Nof, a senior intelligence officer now serving in the counter-terror staff, said: "The entire arena is very threatening to Israelis, but not to Israelis only."
His division has a good track record of warning Israelis to leave before a terrorist attack in the Sinai, where there have been several since February 2004.
More than 120 people have been killed in the region. The terror started with the bombing of the Hilton Hotel in Taba; continued with bombings along the Sinai coast down to Sharm el-Sheikh; and last month returned with a triple attack in Dahab and a strike on a vehicle belonging to the 11-nation Multinational Force and Observers, or MFO, that monitors Israeli and Egyptian compliance with their peace agreement.
The kidnapping threat, though different from past ones, comes at a particularly awkward time because the World Economic Forum on the Middle East is to convene in Sharm el-Sheikh, at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, between May 20 and 22.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will host presidents, royalty, prime ministers and cabinet ministers from Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Malaysia, the Palestinian Authority, Abu Dhabi, Djibouti, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.
Ely Karmon, a senior researcher at the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, said in a report published last week that Saudi jihadists backed an al-Qaida infrastructure in the Sinai, "To strengthen and expand their own influence in the region by destabilizing the Mubarak regime." According to the report, they were imitating the Egyptian jihadist strategy of the 1990s, although there is no proof of a link between the network of Sinai Bedouin and the Cairo groups.
Scant information the Egyptian authorities have released about their investigations of recent bombings make it "difficult to have a clear idea concerning the al-Qaida presence in the country," Karmon continued.
According to his account, Egyptian intelligence was surprised to discover al-Qaida had an extensive network in Sinai. The authorities captured substantial amounts of arms and explosives, probably smuggled from Sudan or Saudi Arabia by sea, he added.
However, "The group behind the (recent) attacks does not appear to have the technological or financial resources associated with al-Qaida and is using limited amounts of explosives and primitive bombs," the report added.
Several general patterns emerge, Karmon continued.
"Some of the Sinai Bedouin tribes constitute a new constituency in which al-Qaida flourishes. The very closed nature of these people, their estrangement from the Egyptian establishment, their geographical isolation and the topography of the terrain make it difficult for the security forces to control them.
Successive attacks against the MFO, in July 2005 and in April 2006 and the battles against the Egyptian military "prove this infrastructure is not afraid to challenge the central government," Karmon noted.
Har Nof said the Egyptian authorities "are aware of the (latest) threats and are making very extensive efforts, but they can't do everything."
In a gun battle Tuesday morning Egyptian security forces reportedly killed the leader of a jihadist group who was wanted for last month's attack in Dahab. At least 23 people were killed in the Dahab attack, al-Jazeera TV reported.
Karmon quoted "Egyptian observers" as maintaining that three attacks in the Sinai in less than 18 months "exposed major holes in the peninsula's security regime, as well as in the management of the ensuing crises. That the bombers can seemingly avoid checkpoints with ease suggests not only inefficiency on the part of those in charge of security but (also a lack of) knowledge on the attackers."
Most of Dahab's residents reportedly complained that security procedures there have been lax. "If the police are unable to secure such a small resort, with only one access road, then the country is facing 'a major problem,'" Karmon said, echoing critics.
The militants' buildup also concerned Israel because arms were smuggled from the Sinai into the Gaza Strip and possibly through the Negev desert to the West Bank. Palestinians have already fired Grad missiles and Israelis feared the Palestinians have shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles.
"Enhanced jihadist activity in Sinai could directly influence the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and radicalize it even more," Karmon wrote.
