In the wake of the July 23, 2005 bombings in the resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt , four groups claimed responsibility for the attacks. One of these groups named itself after al-Qaeda, another named itself ?Egyptian Tawhid and Jihad? , implying either a connection or a tribute to Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi?s Iraq-based network, formerly called Tawhid and Jihad .
Now, Egyptian prosecutors have determined that it was, in fact, members of the Tawhid and Jihad group who were responsible for the bombings that took place in the summer of 2005. Members of this group have also been accused of involvement in the 2004 bombing , which seemed specifically to target mostly Israeli tourists who came to the Sinai Peninsula during the Sukkot holiday. The group?s claim of responsibility for the Sharm al-Sheikh operation that appeared on the Internet within days of the explosions claimed that they were the same organization behind the attacks the previous year.
The size of the Tawhid and Jihad network within the Sinai Peninsula is unknown. Thirteen members are currently on trial, with two other possible members already tried and one killed. Most are Bedouins, say the Egyptians, with no international connections. Egyptian prosecutor Hisham Badawi says that the group was put together for the purpose of carrying out the attacks. Tawhid and Jihad?s claim of responsibility said that they were acting on the orders of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and were attacking in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . There is no evidence that Egyptian Tawhid and Jihad is or was operationally connected to al-Qaeda or (the original) Tawhid and Jihad network; they may have only been inspired by them.
If what is coming out of the Egyptian courtroom is true, then the Sinai attacks could be among the first examples of the type of organization that experts say will characterize the next generation of Islamist terrorism. The process, which the Egyptian attacks seem to have followed, goes as follows: A small group of individuals become convinced that they should carry out an attack, and a spontaneously-formed cell materializes. They are inspired by the words of al-Qaeda leaders, though they may have no physical or operational connection to the group. The individuals in the cell have no connections to international terrorist organizations, with backgrounds void of prior Islamist or terrorist activity. The group is formed solely for the purpose of carrying out an operation and, therefore, does not leave indications of its existence in the form of other, more public Islamist activities that may draw the attention of the authorities. Once the attack is carried out, the group can use the Internet to claim responsibility to an international audience of supporters, achieving recognition and freedom through obscurity.
Such patterns may make attacks more difficult to interdict in spite of the fact that members of such cells are more likely to be amateurs with far less training than past terrorists have had. If the future shape of international Islamic terrorism evolves in such a way, tracking terrorists may become a much more difficult task, with the focus removed from established organizations and placed on self-generating, entrepreneurial cells, for which the personalities involved are unknowns, and the period for interdiction is shorter.