The bloody attack on a hotel in North Sinai on Tuesday was meant to expose Egypt’s “weak control” over the restive peninsula, said a prominent political analyst Abdallah al-Sennawi.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on a hotel in Arish where judges supervising parliamentary elections were residing. Two judges, four policemen and one civilian were killed in the attack, the latest in a series of fatal assaults that have plagued the peninsula since the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
“The Arish incident was a purposeful blow to expose weak control over Sinai,” al-Sennawi, a journalist and political commentator, told al-Hayat satellite channel late Tuesday.
Sennawi said he believes ongoing military campaigns against extremists in Sinai has not yet eliminated terrorist havens completely, noting that the recent IS attacks in Europe were meant to “reduce pressure on the group’s strongholds.”
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
