With none claiming responsibility, Egyptian Bedouins in Sinai fear they may pay the price for rockets fired on Israel and Jordan, Amirah Ibrahim reports "No matter who is to blame, Bedouins pay the price," commented Swilam Abu Ghazi, one of Al-Tarabin tribe's sheikhs. He seemed pessimistic as he expressed fears of what the coming days would bring to his people. Swilam was referring to the recent security procedures imposed following the attack on Jordan and Israel. Last week, police deployed hundreds of extra troops to the border between the Sinai Peninsula and southern Israel, just days after at least five Grad missiles were fired at the nearby Israeli and Jordanian resort towns of Eilat and Aqaba. One Jordanian was killed and three others wounded when one of the missiles landed in front of an Aqaba hotel. "Security forces will search the area and conduct investigations into the possible hiding place of terrorists," stated a security official. More than 40 armoured vehicles with hundreds of soldiers rushed into Sinai as the main and secondary roads leading to the border were closed. No group claimed responsibility of the attack. However, both Jordan and Israel asserted the missiles were fired from Egyptian territory. "Egypt will never, under any circumstances, tolerate the use of its lands by any party to harm the country's interests. Security efforts are being intensified to unravel the circumstances behind the firing of the five rockets," the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported, quoting a governmental source. Israel accused Hamas of being behind the attack. For its part, Hamas tried to blame the incident on Israel. A senior Hamas official in Gaza told reporters that Israel was the only party with anything to gain from the attack, since it provided "justification for further attacks against the Palestinians." Meanwhile, Egyptian sources declined media reports that security forces in Sinai stopped three men with bomb- making equipment and explosives five days before the rocket attacks. Leaks about a possible closure of Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip disturbed Palestinians and raised argument on whether the attacks were aimed to damage recently improved relations between Egypt and Hamas following Israel's violent response to Turkish ships carrying medical aid and food to Gaza. President Hosni Mubarak ordered the open of the Rafah crossing in the wake of the incident for an indefinite period. Egyptian security sources denied that Egypt would close the Rafah crossing. "Rafah is open to all according to requirements, and is still working normally. There is an influx from both sides to the crossing." Sources pointed out that the direction of the rocket launches remains uncertain while it is possible, and to some probable, that the rockets were fired from the mountains of occupied Palestine by Israel itself in order that it might again wage war on Gaza or cause tension in the relationship between Hamas and Egypt and Jordan. Grad rockets have a flight range of just 25 miles (40 kilometres), taking the volatile Gaza Strip -- 190 miles (300 kilometres) away -- off the hook. Some reports suggested that Bedouin smugglers in Sinai, under pressure from a shrinking Gaza smuggling industry after both Egyptian and Israeli security loosened their blockade, hope to reignite tensions in the area. "This may give them an opportunity to revive their role as a significant power -- as intermediaries -- with Palestinians," commented one source. In any event, leaders of Sinai's Bedouin communities are tense, expecting the Bedouins could take some of the blame, as they have for previous terrorist attacks in Egypt. "If the attacks originated in Sinai, it will affect the Bedouins," said another sheikh from the Sawarka tribe of northern Sinai, near the Gazan border. "The government could arrest 200 to 300 people all because of one person. It could be a big problem." Egyptian security forces were combing the mountainous desert around Taba and had enlisted the help of 100 Bedouin to conduct the search. It's not the first time Bedouin cooperation has been utilised for such a mission. Following a series of terrorist bombings of Sinai resort areas from 2004 to 2006, the government says, Bedouin tribesmen helped track down dozens of locals it believed to be implicated in the attacks. Hundreds of Bedouin were arrested in the process. "Until today, the government has released 180 of those who were imprisoned. But there are still 200 to 300 in jail." Aiming to avoid mistreatment of Sinai's Bedouins, a senior security expert and analyst, retired Major General Fouad Allam, warned not to rush to judgement but to wait for an official statement by security bodies. "I am worried that the media may be deceived by Israeli claims and accusations to set more tension between Egypt and Hamas. The Israelis have previously planted Palestinian agents inside Sinai to carry out violent attacks against Israel, so as to put Egyptian-Palestinian relations on fire," Allam said.
