All three terrorist attacks last week in Libya, Afghanistan and Sinai followed the same new al Qaeda modus operandi which uses small, highly-trained special ops units striking their targets in two or three waves with heavy weapons.

Al Qaeda-led Salafi Bedouin bands Sunday, Sept. 16, expanded their Sinai offensive to three Egyptian bases along a 70-kilometer front three days after they overran the US-led Multinational Force base in northern Sinai. Heavily-armed Islamist gunmen struck Egyptian bases at El Arish, Rafah opposite the Israeli border and Sheikh Zuweid, where they used local schoolchildren as human shields and shot down an Egyptian helicopter. Egypt has imposed a blackout on all three episodes. Hundreds of US MFO officers remain trapped in their Sinai base.

First reports of at least 4 peacekeepers hurt when scores of Salafi Bedouin linked to al Qaeda stormed the Multinational Force’s camp in northern Sinai with grenades, mortars and automatic guns Friday, Sept. 14. The 1,500 mostly US troops are posted in Sinai to monitor the Egyptian-Israeli 1979 peace accords. This was the second al-Qaeda-instigated assault on a primarily American target in the Middle East in four days after the murder of four US diplomats in Benghazi Tuesday. The incident is still ongoing…