Al Qaeda’s rocket attack on Eilat from Sinai caught Israeli, US and Egyptian intelligence nappy. Israel is getting its act together with new units to man the three borders facing the new al Qaeda presence in Sinai, Syria and Iraq.

In case of a follow-up attack, Eilat’s bomb shelters wee opened after five long-range Grad missiles were aimed from Sinai at the city Wednesday, April 17. The attack was claimed by an al Qaeda-linked Salafist group operating in Sinai and the Gaza Strip – the Shura Council of Jihad fighters of Jerusalem.  It was not intercepted by Iron Dome. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon updated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – who is in London for the Margaret Thatcher funeral – and discussed with him how Israel should respond.

Zawahiri has evacuated his al Qaeda jihadists from Afghanistan and Pakistan and relocated them in Egypt, Sinai and Syria, out of range of US drones and special forces, which he judges are the two prongs of the incoming CIA chief John’ Brennan’s counterterrorism strategy.

President Obama sent US Undersecretary for Defense Intelligence Michael Vickers to Cairo Sunday, Jan. 12 to try and revitalize the counter-terror war in Libya and Sinai. debkafile: Obama needs to show action on fighting terror before the murder of US Ambassador Christ Stevens in Benghazi by al Qaeda comes up in congress and hampers the endorsement of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary and John Brennan as Central Intelligence Director, who were nominated Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire for halting the eight-day Gaza operation Wednesday night, Nov. 21, after President Barack Obama personally pledged to start deploying US troops in Egyptian Sinai next week. He said President Morsi had consented to the incoming troops going into immediate action against the Iranian smuggling networks. This means that the Gaza blockade is extended and the focus of combat moves from Gaza to Sinai. 

Barack Obama second term is a changed president. After approving Israel’s operation in Gaza he is no longer holding back from direct US military involvement in Syria and has big plans to plug the Sinai smuggling routes through which Iran arms and supplies its surrogates in the Gaza Strip ...

President Morsi is already being challenged by opponents in his own Muslim Brotherhood for his effort to calm the Gaza conflict instead of launching a holy war against Israel. Washington has let him know that to obtain desperately needed US aid, he must play ball for blocking Iran’s arms ...

Obama is keen on Muslim Brotherhood collaboration in the war on al Qaeda and other terrorists, including those sponsored by Tehran, and offered to build a hi-tech security radar fence to defend the Suez Canal from the terrorists and smugglers infesting Sinai.

Israeli, US, Egyptian and Jordanian counterterrorism agencies are on elevated alert since Oct. 25, debkafile reports: Salafi and al Qaeda cells in Egyptian Sinai are said poised to unleash coordinated terrorist attacks on US and Egyptian targets in Sinai and in Israel to avenge Israel’s targeted killing of two senior commanders of the Salafi-al Qaeda Sinai-Gaza network. Perpetrators of the Benghazi murders of 4 US diplomats are among the jihadi reinforcements coming in from Libya.

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar will not just be visiting the Gaza Strip as a benefactor but with a plan to extend the regional ambitions he launched by intervening in the Libyan revolt and the Syrian conflict. He hopes to shore Hamas up as a force for reining in Salafi and al Qaeda lawlessness in Sinai before it cuts into Qatari influence in Libya. Israel may be up against more than Islamist terrorists, but their Qatari sponsor  too. 

Hamas leaders Mahmoud A-Zahar and Deputy commander of its military arm Marwan Issa spent the second week of September in Beirut and Tehran finalizing and signing protocols covering a detailed and binding commitment by the radical Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip to join Iran, Syria and Hizballah in a war on Israel, debkafile’s exclusive sources disclose. Israelis now ask what guarantees Cairo offers to offset the threat of an Iranian-orchestrated Hamas war operation against Israel from the Gaza Strip or Sinai.

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.

To keep the truce with the Islamist terrorist groups in Sinai in place, Egypt is releasing dozens of jailed Salafist gunmen every few days in batches, so feeding them a steady supply of reinforcements. Cairo is also in negotiation with Bedouin tribal elders to grant a body of 6,000 Al-Qaeda-linked Salafi gunmen the status of an approved, independent militia. Armed with up-to-date Egyptian weapons, this militia is to be charged with responsibility for maintaining security. Israel is taxed with a new headache in the south.

For the first time, a thread links the triple rocket attack on the Israeli town of Sderot, with the two terrorist cells captured in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – Sunday, Aug. 26, debkafile reports. Both were conceived by Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP has ordered its Sinai cells and Egyptian and Palestinian offshoots to step up their attacks and hold Israeli towns, Eilat and Sderot, hostage against pursuit. Fears that chemicals held by the Saudi cell may have reached Sinai.
 

Israel has asked the Obama administration to intervene with Cairo for the removal of Egyptian tanks deployed in Sinai without permission, fearing they are there to stay. This issue has become tangled up in broader issues: President Mohamed Morsi hints that substantial US economic aid is the key to the tanks’ removal, the launch of a major Egyptian offensive on al Qaeda-linked Sinai terrorists and his refusal of an invitation to visit Tehran. Israel has posted an Iron Dome battery in Eilat against more missile strikes from Sinai.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has set up house in Sinai and Gaza, dedicating itself to attacks on Israel. The Egyptian army’s big counter-terror offensive shows no signs of taking off, although its M-60 tanks looking like having come to stay on the Israeli border.

Israel willingly acceded to Cairo’s request for permission to deploy fighter planes and armored troop carriers in Sinai - a demilitarized buffer zone under their 1979 peace treaty – in support of President Mohamed Morsi’s counter-terror offensive against lawless Islamist bands. debkafile reports: It was soon realized in Washington and Jerusalem that the “offensive” was largely bogus and being used less for eliminating Salafi terrorists and more for purging the Egyptian military of pro-Western influence and promoting its takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The initial Egyptian and Israeli accounts of the attacks in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed and the Israeli border crashed Sunday night, Aug. 5, don’t match up:  Egypt points the finger at the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip; Israel at Sinai salafists. debkafile postulates a third option: Tehran may have harnessed its Gaza Strip proxies and a Sinai al Qaeda cell for coordinated attacks on Egyptian and Israeli military targets to avenge Al Qaeda’s enlistment to the Western-Arab-backed revolt against Bashar Assad.

The Israeli Air Force struck two APCs seized by Sinai Salafis who first stormed an Egyptian post on the Egyptian-Israeli border Sunday night, Aug. 5, killing at least 15 Egyptian commandos, injuring many and kidnapping an unknown number. The gunmen then smashed the APCs through to the Kerem Shalom terminal. The one which got across was destroyed by the IAF.  debkafile: This appears to be the first Sinai-based Islamist reprisal against Egyptian troops for an Israeli counter-terror operation in the Gaza Strip.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt will have pushed aside Iran and energy as top issues when Monday, June 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin on a short visit to Israel meets Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. On this at least they have common ground:  The Muslim Brotherhood governments rolling out along Middle East shores with US encouragement – Libya, last year; Egypt, yesterday; and Syria, tomorrow – are seen as a threat to regional stability rivaling even the menace of a nuclear-armed Iran.