Hamas freeing of al-Qaeda-linked terrorist may explain Sinai travel warning
Released man said behind 2006 Dahab bombings, and 2011 murder of Italian in Gaza; Israel has urged citizens to leave peninsula for fear of attacks
Hamas freed a Salafi leader of an al-Qaeda affiliated terror group, it was reported Friday. His group is believed to have close ties with terror cells currently operating in the Sinai.
Israel reportedly believes the terrorist, Abu Walid Al-Maqdisi, who was set free after some 17 months on Thursday, was the mastermind of three bombings in Dahab in Egypt’s SInai Peninsula that killed more than 20 people in 2006 and fears his release could lead to more such attacks.
Channel 2 News analyst Ehud Ya’ari said Friday that Hamas had released an individual who may carry out terror attacks in Sinai.
Al-Maqdisi, an Egyptian previously residing in Gaza whose real name is Hisham al-Saidni, is the head of Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, an Islamic extremist group that also is believed to have kidnapped, and killed, Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza in April 2011. The release of al-Maqdisi had been one of the conditions set forth by the terror group when it seized Arrigoni.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers had arrested al-Maqdisi in March 2011 for attempting to disrupt public order.
On Thursday, Israel’s Counterterrorism Bureau warned its citizens to leave Sinai immediately.
“We possess information that Gaza terror groups and others are planning attacks on Israeli tourists in the immediate future,” the government agency said in a statement.
Based on intelligence collected by the bureau, terrorists belonging to global Jihad organizations and Palestinian terror groups plan to kill or abduct Israeli tourists and will target beaches and resorts known to be favored by them.
The travel warning instructed Israelis planning to travel to Sinai not to go — and called on families to make immediate contact with relatives who are currently there to try to bring them back to Israel.
According to Channel 2 News, there are currently several hundred Israelis vacationing in the Sinai, most of them Arab Israelis.
Israel has issued travel advisories for Sinai before. But the security warnings and travel notices have increased since Hosni Mubarak was toppled in 2011 and amid rising lawlessness among Bedouin tribes.
Egyptian officials dismissed the Israeli warning on Friday, claiming it was concocted by Israeli tourism companies in an effort to scare Israelis out of Egyptian hotels and draw them to Israeli ones.
An unnamed Egyptian official told the German news agency that the Sinai Peninsula was under the control of Egyptian authorities and that there are no terrorists operating there.
The Dahab bombings took place on April 24, 2006, at a restaurant, a cafe and a market. A reported 23 people were killed — mainly Egyptians, but also a German, Lebanese, Russian, Swiss, and a Hungarian. Dozens were injured, including Israeli, American and Palestinian tourists. The blasts were said to be suicide attacks, carried out by Bedouin, orchestrated by Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad.
