Jailan Halawi examines the latest clampdown on clandestine groups Last week's arrest of Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, secretary-general of the Union of Arab Doctors and a senior member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood's Executive Guidance Bureau, opened a Pandora's Box of questions concerning the possible ramifications of the clampdown on the political arena. While it is not uncommon for the regime to clash with the group, the circumstances engulfing the recent clampdown added more spice to the already peculiar relationship between the state and the group often identified as its greatest rival. Seven other prominent MB figures were also among the arrested in the Sunday 28 June dawn round-up, including Fathi Lashin, a former legal adviser to the Ministry of Justice and an expert on Islamic finance who was released earlier this week for health reasons. Although generally believed to be on the moderate wing of the MB leadership, Abul-Fotouh and his counterparts could face charges of conspiring with foreign organisations, including the Lebanese-based Shia party of Hizbullah. Abul- Fotouh reportedly led a cell that had been instructed by Hizbullah to stage street demonstrations in Egypt and other Arab countries and recruit jihadist cells to go to Gaza to receive paramilitary training from Hamas. While tightening the noose on the Brotherhood is not a novelty in the ongoing confrontation between the group and state, the Shia connections seem to add a new dimension to the current round. In April security sources announced the arrest of 49 alleged members of Hizbullah, accusing them of planning "hostile operations on Egyptian soil" and intending to use Cairo, as well as the Sinai Peninsula, to transfer funds, weapons, instructions and recruits to the Gaza Strip. Hizbullah is armed and funded by Iran and Syria, and won respect across the Arab world for fighting Israel to a standstill in the war of 2006. In response to the April accusations Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah appeared on the group's Al-Manar satellite channel and said only one of the 49 people arrested belonged to the movement. He denied all charges and said the man posed no threat to Egypt and was on a "logistical" mission aimed at helping Palestinians to fight Israel. The incident compromised Nasrallah in the eyes of many Egyptians who objected to Egyptian soil being used as a launch pad for operations. Attitudes towards Iran and its ally Hizbullah vary across the Arab world. Egypt and Saudi Arabia distrust Iranian ambitions in the Middle East, leaving Syria, which still backs Hizbullah, as Iran's only real ally in the region. Egypt's Sunni regime also suspects Iran's Shia leaders of seeking to mobilise their affiliates across the Middle East, including Hizbullah, to undermine Tehran's critics. Describing the recent arrests as "the tip of the iceberg", a security source speaking on condition of anonymity assured more plots will be unveiled "as further terrorists are captured". In May the Ministry of Interior announced it had aborted an attempt by Al-Qaeda affiliates to use Egypt as a base for recruitment and planning terrorist attacks domestically and abroad. The existence of the alleged Al-Qaeda cell was divulged when the security apparatus announced its forces had arrested the perpetrators of 22 February bombing in the Khan El-Khalili bazaar that left a 17-year- old French girl dead and 24 others wounded. The bombshell news was accompanied by details of another, more shadowy group, the Palestinian Islamic Army. Little additional information was made public. A couple of weeks later more than a dozen extremists belonging to Al-Takfeer wal Hijra, a group that considers the wider community as inhabited by infidels and demands its adherents withdraw from it, were arrested. Then in June came a new spate of arrests among the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood which culminated in last week's detention of Abul-Fotouh and his colleagues. Earlier, scores of Shias accused of belonging to a group that seeks to undermine the regime, were arrested, including Hassan Shehata, a mosque preacher jailed for three months in 1995 on charges of deriding religion. Reportedly, members of the group were rounded-up from several governorates, including Gharbiya, Sharqiya, Giza and Daqahliya. They face charges of deriding religion, spreading Shia ideology and belonging to an illegal organisation. Shia sources say the aim of the arrests is to encourage Egypt's Shia community to distance itself from the Iranian- sponsored Hizbullah. Despite no Shia Egyptians having been accused openly of being members of the Hizbullah cell "monitoring their activities closely is now mandatory for safe
