Posted on 10/09/2004 5:22:44 PM PDT by Perdogg
Egyptian investigators said they suspect that a group of eight to 10 terrorists targeting Israelis carried out the Thursday night attacks, possibly slipping in from Saudi Arabia or Jordan on speed boats.
Israel has blamed al-Qaida for the attacks. The Egyptian investigators are leaning toward an al-Qaida connection as well, saying a local sleeper cell may have been awakened to carry out the attacks, Egypt's first terrorist strike in seven years.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said such a group would almost certainly be linked to Ayman al-Zawahri, who led the Egyptian Islamic Jihad before merging his group with al-Qaida in 1998. The Egypt-born Zawahri is now bin Laden's top deputy.
Two Egyptian security officials said at least one woman saw two men in the car believed used in the Taba attack before it exploded and was able to provide detailed descriptions.
"It was dark and she could not give 100-percent details, but the information she gave is good and provided some clues about how it all happened," one official said.
The officials said investigators were focusing on two possible scenarios, one involving foreign terrorists who slipped into Taba from Jordan or Saudi Arabia on speed boats, and another involving a sleeper cell in Egypt that was awakened for the attacks.
"It seemed to be planned and designed like the Sept. 11 attacks so that the explosions would take place simultaneously," one of the officials said.
He said investigators were leaning toward the foreigners' scenario because of the sophistication of the coordinated attacks, describing the home-grown scenario as a 10-15 percent possibility.
"The whole operation should have been planned abroad, even if some Egyptians could be involved," the other official said.
Egypt arrests dozens on suspicion of role in Sinai attacks Egyptian authorities arrested dozens of Bedouins on Friday and Saturday, on suspicion of involvement in Thursday night's terror attacks in Sinai, in which 33 people were killed. Egyptian security forces also took fingerprint and DNA samples from the remnants of the cars that blew up in the attacks.
Head of Shin Bet security service Avi Dichter visited the scene of the Taba Hilton attack on Saturday. Dichter and Shin Beit seniors have been in touch with Egyptian intelligence officials over the attacks? investigation.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said on a Channel 2 interview Saturday that the terrorists planned to totally destroy the hotel in order to execute a mega-attack.
Israeli security officials suspect Al-Qaida or one of the terror network's affiliates was behind Thursday night's triple bombings in the Sinai Peninsula that killed at least 30 people, most of them believed to be Israelis.
Military Intelligence Director Major General Aharon (Farkash) Ze'evi told ministers meeting in Jerusalem on Friday that the bombings were most likely carried out by Al-Qaida.
Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim told Army Radio on Friday that Palestinian militants apparently were not involved and he suspected Al-Qaida affiliates.
A U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington said American officials suspect - but aren't certain - Al-Qaida played a role because of the attack's level of sophistication.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Palestinian or Egyptian militant groups should not be ruled out either.
"On the face of things, this is different from what we are familiar with from Palestinian terrorist groups," he said.
But Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in Cairo that it was too early to speculate. "This is a terrorist attack but who did it? We can't tell as the investigation has just begun."
Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adly told reporters in Taba "we are not ruling out anybody."
Israel joins probe Israeli security officials were participating in an investigation Friday into the attacks, according to sources in Jerusalem.
Officially, however, the government has not confirmed that Israeli agents are participating in the probe, primarily because of Egyptian reticence to admit that there is cooperation between the two countries in the field of security.
The initial results of the probe suggest that the two car bombs that exploded in the resort of Ras Satan were originally designed to blow up at different Sinai hotels. Egyptian security sources told their Israeli counterparts that the terrorists had planned to blow up three hotels, but that two blew up prematurely.
Investigators probing the Taba bombing say that the vehicle used to carry out the attacks, in all probability a truck, was laden with a huge quantity of explosives. It is still not clear whether the bomb was detonated by remote control, or whether a suicide bomber drove it into the hotel.
Israeli sources say that had received four pieces of intelligence information regarding planned attacks in Sinai. Three of these related to planned attacks by Palestinians, while the fourth indicated that a global Islamic group was planning an attack.
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