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December 1, 2006

Egypt: Three Islamists Sentenced To Death For Taba Bombings

News from AKI, BBC, Courier Mail, Al Jazeera, DPA and Associated Press:

Three Bedouins were sentenced to death by a court in Islamiyah, Egypt on Thursday (November 30). They were convicted of involvement in bombings at resorts frequented by Israelis in the Red Sea resorts Taba and Ras Shitan in October 2004, which killed 34 people. The three men, Younes Mohammed Mahmoud, Osama al-Nakhlawi and Mohammed Jaez Sabbah, belong to the group Tawhid Wal Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War).

Ten other individuals were found guilty of involvement in the bombings. Two were given life sentences, and the remaining eight were given sentences ranging from five years' to fifteen years' imprisonment.

The attacks from October 2004 had included an assault on the Taba Hilton. Most of the dead were Israeli tourists. The mastermind of these attacks, Ayad Said Saleh, was a Palestinian who lived in Sinai. He had died in the bombings.

The trial of the 13 convicted men had begun on March 27 this year.

The group Tawhid and Jihad had been formed in Al Arish in the northern Sinai in 2002, by a young dentist called Khaled Mosaed. He is said to have been motivated by anger at the United States, whom he considered to be humiliating the Muslim world. Mosaed recruited about 100 members to the group, who were kept in separate cells to limit damage should they be arrested.

Mosaed died in a car in September 2005 after firing at police who mounted a roadblock in the SInai. Police shot him, but arrested another occupant of the vehicle, Abu Grier, whose subsequent interrogation led to substantial information being acquired.

It seems that the main leaders of al Tawhid wal Jihad have either been killed or dispersed. At least nine militants from the group were shot last year. On November 21, 2005, Salem Khadr al-Shnub was shot dead in the mountainous region of Jabal Halal, in the SInai. Two of his relatives were also killed. As well as being involved in the 2004 Taba bombings, Shnub was wanted for the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings of July 23 2005, which were also the work of Tawhid and Jihad. Shnub was held responsible for an attack on a vehicle belonging to international peacekeeping forces in Sinai on August 15, 2005, in which two Canadian women were killed.

The Sharm el-Sheikh attacks cost the lives of 64 people and wounded and 170 injured when bombs hit a market and two hotels. Many of the victims were tourists.

On April 24 this year, Tawhid and Jihad mounted another series of bombings at the Red Sea resort of Dahab, which is popular with divers. 19 people were killed.

The Dahab attacks led to a counter-offensive by the Egyptian government. The leader of Tawhid and Jihad, 30-year old Nasser Khamis el-Mallahi, was killed in a shootout with police near al Arish on Tuesday May 9. A top aide to Mallahi, one Abdallah Alyan Abu Jarair, was captured. Automatic weapons, hand grenades and ammunition had been in the pair's possession after the firefight with police.

On May 19, Mallahi's deputy, Arafat Ali, was involved in a police shootout in he town of Rafah on the Egypt/Gaza border. He tried to throw a bomb at the police but he managed to detonate it prematurely, killing himself. His incompetence echoed that of two footsoldiers of the group who tried to be suicide bombers against multinational forces posted in Sinai on April 26. They only managed to kill themselves.

Following the deaths of the group's leaders, at least a dozen members of the group gave themselves up to police. The most prominent of these was the brother of Salem Khadr al-Shnub, Mohammed al-Shnub, who gave himself up on Friday May 26. Salem Khadr al-Shnub was thought to have been the main bomb-maker for the group.

Tawhid and Jihad were formerly believed to have been assisted by militants from Gaza, though now the Egyptian authorities claim that the group is formed from impoverished and disaffected individuals from the Sinai.

Those who were convicted on Thursday have no right of legal appeal, as they were tried at a state security court. Their only hope of clemency can from a direct appeal to President Hosni Mubarak. Several of the defendants had claimed that they had been tortured.

Ahmed Seif el-Islam, one of the defense lawyers, said the sentences were "unjust".

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 1, 2006 5:45 PM

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