CAIRO: Egypt's North Sinai governor Abdul Wahab Mabrouk and a leading Salfist movement spokesperson have denied the existence of armed militants in the country's Sinai peninsula. According to Mabrouk, the recent violence in al-Arish is not part of an armed fundamentalist group gaining steam in the country. “The Salafist Movement is a purely missionary movement and has no armed units,” said As'as Bey El-Arish, the commander of the Salafi Movement in El Arish, in comments published by al-Youm al-Saba'a. “The Israeli Mossad propagates such rumors to foster instability in Sinai, and the Salafis have not had confrontations with the police in Sinai,” he added. There are conflicting reports about the air force commander who attacked the El Arish police station recently. Earlier this month, an alleged pamphlet was being distributed to residents in Egypt's Northern Sinai city of al-Arish are calling for an Islamic state. The pamphlets were reported to be from the international terror group al-Qaeda. Reports of the letter came only days after masked gunmen launched an assault against a local police station in Arish, leaving at least three people dead, including a 13-year-old boy caught in the crossfire. It heightened the growing fears sprouting up across Egypt that Islamic conservatives are playing a larger role in determining the political and social future of the country. On July 29, some one million Islamists converged on Cairo's Tahrir Square. Their main theme was that Egypt was an “Islamic state.” BM
