Jerusalem Post:

Report: Over 400 al-Qaida terrorists now in Sinai
By JPOST.COM STAFF
05/30/2011 13:33
Egyptian security official tells Al-Hayyat that Palestinian, Beduin, foreign citizens seeking to carry out attacks, have already attacked.

Over 400 al-Qaida members have made their way into the Sinai Peninsula, a senior Egyptian security official told the Al-Hayyat satellite television station on Monday.

Egyptian security officials were pursuing the terrorists, who are composed of Palestinians, Beduins and foreign Arab citizens, according to the report. The group was reportedly planning to carry out terror attacks in Egypt, the official said.

Additionally, the terrorists carried out "a number of attacks against [Egyptian] security forces in the Sinai city of El Arish," the official told Al-Hayyat.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday also addressed Egypt's security problems in Sinai. "Egypt has had difficulties exercising its sovereignty over Sinai," he said at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

"We saw this in the two gas pipe explosions that occurred there," Netanyahu said. "What's happening in Sinai is that global terrorist organizations are meddling there and their presence is increasing because of the connection between Sinai and Gaza."