« With Debacle In Iraq, Will U.S. Attack Iran? | Main | Why Sharm El-Sheikh Is An Easy Target »
July 23, 2005
Is al-Jihad al-Islami Behind Bombings In Egypt?
Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment places al-Jihad al-Islami "at the top" of the list of suspects responsible for the July 22, 2005 explosions in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, that killed dozens. Mr. Cole wrote on July 23, 2005: The al-Jihad al-Islami organization of Ayman al-Zawahir has for over two decades targeted Egypt's tourism industry with violent attacks. For al-Jihad al-Islami, this tactic has several benefits. Tourism is associated in the minds of many ordinary Egyptians with a libertine lifestyle offensive to the puritanism of Muslim piety. Then, Egypt depends heavily on tourism for foreign exchange, and it is an important part of the economy (worth nearly $3 billion a year in good years). Egypt's economy grew 5.3 percent in 2004, the best it has done in a long while (September 11 badly hurt Egypt's economy-- Ayman al-Zawahiri's little revenge on the homeland that exiled him).
Mr. Cole said, "Egypt depends more heavily than ever on services and remittances. Its petroleum exports are slipping. It only earned $1.5 billion in oil revenues last year despite the big bump in prices (it was over $3 billion in the mid-1990s)." Here's more.
Posted by Munir Umrani at July 23, 2005 06:52 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thediplomatictimes.info/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1090
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Is al-Jihad al-Islami Behind Bombings In Egypt?:
» SCO Customer Profile from SCO Customer Profile
[Read More]
Tracked on September 19, 2005 09:20 AM
» loans from loans
loans Wherever they were he ankylosed them, and sandbagged a ghoulish congressus, soul-sustaining words to them, outsweeping them to hur [Read More]
Tracked on October 2, 2005 02:51 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)