EGYPT KEPT up verbal pressure on the Lebanese Shia Hizbullah movement yesterday while its police continued to scour Sinai for two dozen men accused of trying to destabilise Egypt and of targeting Israeli tourists.
Cairo claims to have broken up a Hizbullah cell that had been planning attacks on its territory.
Hizbullah would pay a “heavy price” for plotting such attacks, a senior Egyptian official stated in the state-run daily, al-Ahram. Egyptian foreign minister Ahmad Aboul Gheit has blamed Hizbullah’s ally Iran, which he said seeks to become the “crowned Iranian queen” of the Middle East.
Last Thursday, Egypt’s public prosecutor ordered the detention for 15 days of 25 people held on suspicion of espionage, planning a rebellion and plotting attacks, allegedly under the orders of Hizbullah.
The Lebanese, Palestinian, Egyptian and Sudanese detainees may be linked to a convoy of lorries said to be laden with weapons bound for Gaza which was bombed by Israel last January.
Monsassar al-Zayat, a lawyer acting for several defendants, said: “My impression is that it is a fabricated case cooked up by Egyptian security in the context of bad relations between Hizbullah and Egypt.” Diaa Rashwam, an Egyptian security expert, said the allegations were politically motivated.
On Friday, Hizbullah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah admitted that Sami Shehab, detained in Egypt last November, “is a member of Hizbullah” and that he was involved in a secret “logistics mission to transport arms and equipment to the Palestinian lands. All other accusations are false and full of imagination and bluff. If helping Palestinians whose land is occupied . . . then I hereby declare that I am guilty of this accusation.”
Mr Nasrallah said Hizbullah did not interfere in the internal affairs of any other country and had no plans to attack Arab states.
Egypt and Hizbullah have been at loggerheads since Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon and tension escalated during Israel’s 23-day onslaught on Gaza. Hizbullah has accused some Arab leaders, in- cluding President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, of backing Israel rather than its Arab antagonists.
Some analysts argue that there is a new regional “cold war”, a contest for influence between Cairo and Tehran. Sunni Egypt is deeply unhappy about Shia Iran’s growing influence.
Commentators suggest Egypt decided to go public now, five months after the arrest of Mr Shehab, because it is upset over President Obama’s decision to open talks with Iran and launch his appeal for reconciliation with the Muslim world in non-Arab Turkey. Cairo is also concerned that the ascendancy of Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza could encourage Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to step up its opposition to the Mubarak government.
