Deadly Islamic Spring! Salafi Sharia Muslims and new Al Qaeda group said behind Israel resort town killings! Eli Lake

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Commandos announced Islamic emirate in Sinai in July 2011.

8/22/11, "Al Qaeda linked to Israeli bus ambush," Washington Times, Eli Lake

"US intelligence agencies are investigating reports that al Qaeda-aligned groups played a key role in the deadly commando-style attack near

• the Israeli resort town of Eilat last week....

One intelligence official who focuses on al Qaeda said an initial assessment identified a new group, al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, as a key perpetrator of the attack....

Mr. (Dore) Gold added, “These organizations all work together, and Sinai is a place where they all meet.”...

“This is an example of Salafi extremists who tried to link themselves to al Qaeda and use that brand name,” the counterterrorism official said, adding that it would be premature to say al Qaeda in the Sinai is an al Qaeda affiliate the way others, like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or al-Shabab in Somalia, are direct affiliates of al Qaeda."...

• (Why the slicing and dicing of which 'affiliate' it is? They all have the same goal and don't care how they get there. ed)
  

U.S. intelligence reports have said the Sinai terrorist group has a few rudimentary training facilities in the region, as well as strategic control of some towns. The group also is suspected of conducting other recent attacks on a natural gas pipeline in Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

The Sinai al Qaeda group is thought to have been bolstered by the release this year of between 200 and 300 prisoners freed in Egypt.

While Israel has said al Qaeda-linked groups maintain a small presence in the Sinai since 2005 and 2006, the capability of such groups has increased in recent months.

In late July, commandos stormed the police station at the northern Sinai regional capital of al-Arish. The attackers then produced a manifesto announcing an Islamic emirate in Sinai, calling themselves al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula.

“After the attack on al-Arish, there was no longer any doubt that al Qaeda had some kind of potent presence in the peninsula,”

• another U.S. official told The Washington Times."...

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5/10/11, "Egypt violence heightens concern about growing Salafi role," CS Monitor




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