Featured News: Egyptian security officers in Sinai kidnapped; army responds

In response to the kidnapping of seven Egyptian security officers travelling in north Sinai on Thursday, the Egyptian army has sent re-enforcements into the increasingly lawless peninsula, with a presidential spokesman pledging that "all options" were on the table to free the captives.

What this highlights is the headache that Sinai is becoming for everyone in the Levant who has a militant Islamist or jihadi enemies. Since the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the once tightly-controlled Sinai has deteriorated into bandit country, and violent jihadi groups have taken advantage of the security vacuum to set up their operations there. The post-Mubarak freer flow of traffic between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Egypt, as well as the Israeli treaty limitations on Egyptian troop numbers in the Sinai, has also increased the ability of these groups to work more freely on both the Egyptian and Israeli sides of the border. In addition to this most recent kidnapping, in the past months jihadis have launched other attacks on Egyptian military targets in the Sinai, and have even launched raids into Israel.

Egypt can ill afford jihadis taking advantage of the Sinai's lawlessness. Every time Egypt has to ask Israel's permission to move more troops into the region to counter the threat of militants, it raises tensions along the border (even if the goal is a shared one). The southern end of the Sinai peninsula is also one of Egypt's most popular destinations for foreign tourists (containing the famous Sharm -el Sheikh resort city), and there is a history of jihadis targeting this vital revenue source. In October 2004 thirty-four people were killed in a series of bombings that targeted tourist hotels in Taba and Nuweiba; in July 2005, eighty-eight people were killed in areas of Sharm el-Sheikh popular with foreigners; and in November 2012 a planned Mumbai-style attack with guns and rocket-propelled grenades on Sharm el-Sheikh was foiled by the Egyptian police. More jihadi attacks like these could do huge harm to Egypt's already-embattled tourist industry as well as costing a great many lives. Egypt has every reason to cast a wary eye at the Sinai.

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http://news.yahoo.com/gunmen-storm-egyptian-security-post-lawless-sinai-peninsula-054827539.html