Bombings Update
0 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Saturday, October 9 at Saturday, October 09, 2004.
So I may have got a few things wrong in my first post. Most importantly, the news reports on the Egyptian English language TV were quoting a "majority" of th victims to be Egyptian nationals - according to latest news reports it seems like of the 31 confirmed casualties the majority of the dead were Israelis. Expect the casualty number to go up, media here and abroad are still quoting up to 50 hotel guests "missing".
There is no doubt that this attack was targeting Israeli's - especially the bomb at Taba, which practically straddles the Israeli border. It seems to be similar to the Bali bombings in Indonesia - a primary target (Israeli's in this case, Aussies in Bali) followed by white people, followed by foreigners in general, with equally large numbers of locals in the carnage. These bombings will extract a far greater toll on the local population in the long run. If Israeli's stop going to Sinai, that is a massive, massive blow to Egyptian tourism and economy.
Reporting on the bombings is still pretty patchy. There is yet to be anything close to a definitive death/injury count, although it seems like at least 30 in Taba with over 100 injured there. There has been much less coverage of the other two bombings in Nuweiba, where car bombs appear to have struck a restaurant, and a camping ground. Fatalities and injuries there seem much lower but nothing definitive seems to have come out yet.
Apparently some local Bedouin have been arrested - they are workers from a nearby stone quarry so the specualtion is that they may have supplied the attackers with the explosives. Egypt isnt known for its friendly human rights record at the best of times, especially when it comes to prisoners, more so when it comes to "national security risk" types - so I can imagine that these poor bastards will be experiencing a creative new genital surgery technique involving a blowtorch and a pair of pliers unless they start talking.
The editorials in todays English language Egyptian newspapers were consistent in their attitude toward the attacks - that is is severely bad news for Egypt, that it is unlikely that is was local terrorists, that it has all the signs of an "Al-Queda style" attack (multiple targets, synchronised, car and truck bombs, attacking foreign interests etc). Israel is also strongly suggesting that the attack was Al-Queda organised, although the Egyptian govermnent is officially not saying anything.
The bombings have been overshadowed in a big way in both the US and Australia because of the elections - Australia's was today, and the second presidential debate was held in the US yesterday. Or today. Or tomorrow. The time differences are confusing me right now. But this is big, big Middle East news, and could have some major ramifications in the region.
Given how severely Egypt reacted to its home grown Islamic terrorists murdering tourists in the late nineties, you can imagine that the reaction to probably foreign backed Islamic terrorists killing tourists in the peak of tourist season in the terrorism-paranoid post September 11 world being equally, if not more, severe. Imagine all those college break kids in America with daddy's credit card and a bagful of cash looking to go on holiday - most "cautious Americans" would probably decide to head somewhere else. Hosni is not going to be pleased by all this.
Muburak has been consistently calling for a global conference on terrorism for quite some time now. He wants the international community to define exactly what terrorism is, and the rights of nation states in fighting it. This was presumably originally to try and define Israeli incursions into populated civillian areas as some form of terrorism, which was probably why hardly any countries seemed interested in showing up. Muburak is now renewing his calls for this confernce, and one can only imagine that his priorities will have changed markedly from trying to help his brothers the Palestinians (who have probably just played their part in screwing the Egyptian economy) to something more pragmatic and, lets be honest here, "friendly" to the ambitions of western countries.
Going off on a tangent here, but if this happens (an this is all amateur specualtion from a completely unqualified pundit), you really need to start assessing the current reality after the past 5 years of Islamic "uprising" around the world:
- Overthrow of two "friendly" governments, 10,000 plus Muslims killed in the process
- Complete loss of international support for Yasser Arafat
- Marginalisation of the Palestinian cause, massive loss of sympathy for Palestinian people
- Libya, another "friendly" government, wussing out and giving up the fight
- Muslims killed in organised terrorist bombings in Indonesia, Morocco, Phillipines, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and across Africa
and now....
- The "elder statesman" of the Arab world, Hosni Mubarak, forced to join the war against terrorism
Things aren't exactly looking up, are they?
There is no doubt that this attack was targeting Israeli's - especially the bomb at Taba, which practically straddles the Israeli border. It seems to be similar to the Bali bombings in Indonesia - a primary target (Israeli's in this case, Aussies in Bali) followed by white people, followed by foreigners in general, with equally large numbers of locals in the carnage. These bombings will extract a far greater toll on the local population in the long run. If Israeli's stop going to Sinai, that is a massive, massive blow to Egyptian tourism and economy.
Reporting on the bombings is still pretty patchy. There is yet to be anything close to a definitive death/injury count, although it seems like at least 30 in Taba with over 100 injured there. There has been much less coverage of the other two bombings in Nuweiba, where car bombs appear to have struck a restaurant, and a camping ground. Fatalities and injuries there seem much lower but nothing definitive seems to have come out yet.
Apparently some local Bedouin have been arrested - they are workers from a nearby stone quarry so the specualtion is that they may have supplied the attackers with the explosives. Egypt isnt known for its friendly human rights record at the best of times, especially when it comes to prisoners, more so when it comes to "national security risk" types - so I can imagine that these poor bastards will be experiencing a creative new genital surgery technique involving a blowtorch and a pair of pliers unless they start talking.
The editorials in todays English language Egyptian newspapers were consistent in their attitude toward the attacks - that is is severely bad news for Egypt, that it is unlikely that is was local terrorists, that it has all the signs of an "Al-Queda style" attack (multiple targets, synchronised, car and truck bombs, attacking foreign interests etc). Israel is also strongly suggesting that the attack was Al-Queda organised, although the Egyptian govermnent is officially not saying anything.
The bombings have been overshadowed in a big way in both the US and Australia because of the elections - Australia's was today, and the second presidential debate was held in the US yesterday. Or today. Or tomorrow. The time differences are confusing me right now. But this is big, big Middle East news, and could have some major ramifications in the region.
Given how severely Egypt reacted to its home grown Islamic terrorists murdering tourists in the late nineties, you can imagine that the reaction to probably foreign backed Islamic terrorists killing tourists in the peak of tourist season in the terrorism-paranoid post September 11 world being equally, if not more, severe. Imagine all those college break kids in America with daddy's credit card and a bagful of cash looking to go on holiday - most "cautious Americans" would probably decide to head somewhere else. Hosni is not going to be pleased by all this.
Muburak has been consistently calling for a global conference on terrorism for quite some time now. He wants the international community to define exactly what terrorism is, and the rights of nation states in fighting it. This was presumably originally to try and define Israeli incursions into populated civillian areas as some form of terrorism, which was probably why hardly any countries seemed interested in showing up. Muburak is now renewing his calls for this confernce, and one can only imagine that his priorities will have changed markedly from trying to help his brothers the Palestinians (who have probably just played their part in screwing the Egyptian economy) to something more pragmatic and, lets be honest here, "friendly" to the ambitions of western countries.
Going off on a tangent here, but if this happens (an this is all amateur specualtion from a completely unqualified pundit), you really need to start assessing the current reality after the past 5 years of Islamic "uprising" around the world:
- Overthrow of two "friendly" governments, 10,000 plus Muslims killed in the process
- Complete loss of international support for Yasser Arafat
- Marginalisation of the Palestinian cause, massive loss of sympathy for Palestinian people
- Libya, another "friendly" government, wussing out and giving up the fight
- Muslims killed in organised terrorist bombings in Indonesia, Morocco, Phillipines, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and across Africa
and now....
- The "elder statesman" of the Arab world, Hosni Mubarak, forced to join the war against terrorism
Things aren't exactly looking up, are they?
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