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             Egyptian Army Boosts Forces in Sinai After Kidnapping

   by Reuters

   The Egyptian army sent reinforcements into the Sinai Peninsula on
   Monday after President Mohamed Morsi said there would be no talks with
   militant Islamists who abducted seven members of the security forces
   last week.

   Radical Islamists have expanded into a security vacuum in Sinai that
   the state has struggled to fill since an uprising swept autocrat Hosni
   Mubarak from power in 2011. The groups have launched attacks on Israel
   and targets in North Sinai.

   The kidnapping has highlighted lawlessness in the peninsula bordering
   Israel, enraged Egyptian security forces and piled domestic pressure on
   Morsi to act. Egyptian security forces have blocked border crossings
   into the Gaza Strip to pressure the government into helping free their
   colleagues.

   Witnesses saw armored personnel carriers moving east on Monday over the
   Suez Canal towards North Sinai where militants staged the abduction and
   where gunmen assaulted a police base on Monday. They later arrived in
   the North Sinai town of El-Arish, accompanied by the commander of
   Egypt's second field army.

   A military official said the extra military forces were dispatched to
   Sinai after a meeting on Sunday between the army command and Morsi, who
   has promised not to submit to blackmail by kidnappers demanding the
   release of jailed Islamists.

   Presidential spokesman Omar Amer said, "All options are on the table to
   free the kidnapped soldiers."

   The state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said on its website that shipping in
   the Suez Canal had been briefly halted as the reinforcements crossed
   the waterway.

   "Our patience has run out," Al-Ahram quoted a military official as
   saying in its print edition.

   As security began to unravel in the peninsula later in 2011, Israel
   agreed to Egyptian requests to deploy more troops there than allowed by
   the countries' 1979 peace treaty. The Israeli defense ministry had no
   immediate comment on the new deployment.

   The Sinai is mainly a large swathe of rugged, thinly populated desert
   but its Red Sea coast has a string of international tourist resorts.

   Morsi Faces Tough Choices on Action
   "Our impression is that the Israelis are eager for Egypt to improve the
   security situation in the Sinai, and it's unlikely that they would
   object," said a Western diplomat in Cairo.

   Egyptian security forces launched a security operation to re-establish
   control in Sinai last August after an attack that killed 16 Egyptian
   border guards.

   Morsi said on Sunday there would be no talks with "the criminals" -- a
   reference to militants who adhere to a more radical school of Islam
   than the president's Muslim Brotherhood.

   The kidnappers are demanding the release of militants convicted last
   year of the attacks that killed seven people, six of them members of
   the security forces, in 2011.

   A video posted online on Sunday showed seven blindfolded men with their
   hands bound above their heads. They said they were the hostages,
   begging Morsi to free political detainees in Sinai in exchange for
   their own release.

   Al-Masry Al-Youm, an independent newspaper, reported that parents and
   friends of some of the men who appeared in the video had confirmed
   their identities. The video's authenticity could not be independently
   confirmed.

   "In domestic political terms, Morsi is going to be damned if he does
   and damned if he doesn't," said Yasser El-Shimy, Egypt analyst with the
   International Crisis Group.

   "If he negotiates, he will be criticized for being too lenient with
   Islamist militants, and if he tries to wage an operation to free them,
   which may entail casualties, then he is also going to be widely
   criticized."
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   s-in-sinai-after-kidnapping/1664676.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/egyptian-president-morsi-boosts-forces-in-sinai-after-kidnapping/1664676.html