Egypt: the Phony Hezbollah Plot, the Real Hezbollah Plot………….
“A court in Cairo has convicted 26 men of plotting attacks in Egypt and of having ties with the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah. The emergency state security court on Thursday also sentenced the suspects - of Palestinian, Lebanese, Egyptian and Sudanese origin - to prison terms ranging from six months to life terms. The defendants were charged with spying on ships in the Suez Canal, planning attacks on holiday resorts popular with Israelis in Sinai, and smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip. "Hezbollah has been very quite and it seems like they don't want to exacerbate things," Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Beirut, said……..”
It looks like they were sent by Hezbollah, an inter-Arab group most likely interested only in Gaza. They are guilty of breaking Egyptian laws about smuggling into Gaza. Arab media that are not owned and controlled by the oligarchies agree on that, as I do.
My guess is that all the stuff about the Suez Canal and blowing up buildings and attacking tourists is made up by Egyptian officials. The pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi from London claims that the goal of the exaggerated charges and harsh sentences is to keep tensions high with Hezbollah, although most of the accused were Egyptians and Palestinians. This seems to be about right, since Hezbollah does not operate ‘militarily’ outside Lebanon-Israel, and does not use outsiders in these operations. I cannot recall the last time Hezbollah conducted any operations outside Lebanon and Israel in recent years.
Politically this was an ill-advised move for Hezbollah: it gave its Salafi enemies another excuse to raise the phony specter of Shi’s domination. Politically speaking.
Cheers
mhg
Mon Email
Comments