Sinai Bombers Linked to Gaza
Egypt said Tuesday that Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip helped train members
of an underground group charged with organizing a series of bombings in the Sinai Peninsula. The Interior
Ministry named a pair of Palestinians who helped in logistics and training. Abu Suleiman
allegedly provided money and mobile phones. Majid al-Deri allegedly instructed Sinai Egyptians in bomb making.
The Interior Ministry has said for months the bombers belonged to a Sinai-based organization with no external links. Now the ministry says three suicide bombers who killed in Dahab on April 24 were trained in Gaza by an Egyptian named Nasser Khamis el-Mallahi. Mallahi was killed in a police shootout in early May. He is allegedly the attack organizer and was head of a group called Monotheism and Jihad.
Egypt’s Interior Ministry said police had detained one of the Egyptians who trained in Gaza: Yousri Mohareb. Mohareb acknowledged receiving “congratulations from these Palestinian elements after carrying out” the Dahab bombings. The ministry said Deri “facilitated the entrance of Yousri Mohareb to the Palestinian territories, his training in bomb-making techniques and use of weapons”.
Egypt’s “leaders are allied with the enemies of Islam” according to the group behind the Sinai attacks. Egypt’s leaders now believe the bombing suspects included a Palestinian named Aya Said Saleh. Other Sinai suspects, according to Egyptian authorities, tried to flee to Gaza. The initial assessment that the bombers were local is now viewed as flawed. The bombers are connected to Gaza.