Egypt planning Sinai operations

HERE. The target is what are said to be al-Qaeda groups in el-Arish. I guess we’ll get to see what a post-Mubarak Egyptian security operation looks like. Under Mubarak such crackdowns on Islamist groups tended to be of a very hardball character, such as in the years following the big Luxor attack in 1997.

The Sinai always feels fine to me when I go. But there’s no denying that that’s where many of the bad things have happened in Egypt in the past eight years or so. There has been one major attack on every main Sinai resort: Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab, Taba. (In the first and third cases, my own usual hotel was blown up.) Those never seem to be followed up with further incidents, but they weren’t able to prevent one in each case.

Come to think of it, I haven’t been back to Sharm since that incident, which was in the summer of 2005. Some people are put off by the blatant commercialism of the place, but that’s some mighty sparkling water for coral reef snorkelling. Some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen were underwater there, just off the beach.