Israel Matzav

'Go tell it on the Mountain,' Islamist style - UPDATED

Egyptian police disclosed today that they discovered a massive weapons cache inside a mountain in the Sinai desert.

An Egyptian police official said Saturday that boxes of ammunition, RPGs and anti-aircraft missiles have been uncovered inside a mountain in the northern Sinai peninsula.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the weapons were to be smuggled into the neighboring Gaza Strip.

The mountain is about 80 kilometers south of Rafah on the Gaza border. It has been used before as a shelter for local Islamic groups that carried out three major bomb attacks starting October 2004 in Sinai. They killed 125 people in total.

The official said some 2,200 bullets, 30 anti-aircraft missiles, several sacks packed with hand grenades and automatic rifles, and RPG launchers were stored inside the mountain.

They can figure out how to smuggle anti-aircraft missiles and hand grenades into Gaza, but not sugar and flour. Some 'blockade.'

UPDATE 1:56 AM

I would have thought this was obvious, but in case it wasn't, the presence of anti-aircraft missiles in Gaza represents a serious (new?) danger.

"There's no doubt that the appearance of these weapons represents a very significant change," said Yoram Schweitzer, director of the Program on Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

"Air force helicopters fly low over Gaza, and if they are downed the significance of that would be enormous. The air force has to make preparations, and take these weapons into account," Schweitzer said.

Israel had refrained from seizing control of the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Sinai border, under which most of Hamas's weapons are smuggled into the Strip, to "avoid paying the price for retaking control. In the meantime, it is paying a price for not moving in," he said.

And the Olmert-Barak-Livni-Yishai government continues not to move in....

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:27 AM