Author: Reuters
Publication: The Times of India
Date: February 1, 2010
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Egypt-arrests-26-suspected-of-plotting-terrorism-/articleshow/5522057.cms
Egypt has arrested 26 suspects who the prosecutor
said belonged to a cell of militant group Islamic Jihad and were plotting
terrorist acts against tourists and state installations, the official news
agency MENA reported on Sunday.
The suspects, arrested in the provinces of
Mansoura and Dakahiliya on the Nile Delta, had firearms, ammunition and explosives,
the agency said.
The public prosecutor ordered them placed
in precautionary detention for 15 days pending investigations, MENA wrote,
adding that the prosecutor had sent the arms and explosives for forensic investigations.
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) emerged in the
1970s and carried out the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat.
Security analysts say it has been largely
absorbed into al-Qaida, in which former EIJ leader Ayman al-Zawahri is deputy
to Osama bin Laden.
Egypt is concerned about the possibility that
al-Qaida-inspired militants could infiltrate the country after being forced
out of the neighbouring Palestinian enclave of Gaza by Islamist group Hamas,
analysts told a conference last week.
