ISIL Sinai.

This is coolbert:

From the latest edition of the DEBKAfile newsletter a report very disturbing. NOT EVEN to my knowledge ever reported by the main-stream media. Sinai the situation goes from BAD to WORSE!

As copied and posted almost in entirety from DEBKAfile.

"With big gains in N. Sinai, ISIS drives south"

9 January.

"Egyptian control of the vast Sinai Peninsula is slipping fast. After gaining virtual sway over the north and its main roads, Islamic State Caliphate terrorists are moving ahead with an ambitious plan to devour a broad stretch of land on the eastern flank of central Sinai . . . Achieving this objective would bring the jihadists in position to directly threaten Egyptian beach resorts along the Gulf of Aqaba coast and its celebrated tourist resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. It would also bring them up to another section of the Egyptian-Israeli border . . .  ISIS manages to inflict terror on Egyptian security forces despite the close military and intelligence cooperation between Egypt, the US and Israel for securing the north and keeping it out of ISIS control . . .  With northern Sinai virtually under their jackboots, ISIS is engaged in hard bargaining with local Bedouin tribes, primarily the chiefs of the Tiyaha tribal federation, to advance its plans to seize another large chunk of the peninsula. On the table is a proposal for the Tiyaha to permit ISIS to using its territory for launching strikes against the Egyptian army in the south. Their target here, say our military sources, would be the Egyptian 3rd Army which is responsible for all of central Sinai from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Suez Canal. Unlike the 2nd Army in the north, the Third is thinly scattered in disorganized spots across a large area and would be easy prey for terrorist attacks. If the Bedouin chiefs agree to open up their lands to ISIS, the terrorists will be free to sabotage the Egyptian army's main highways links between Egypt proper to Sinai."

THOSE TOURIST RESORTS OF SHARM EL-SHEIKH POPULAR WITH EUROPEANS AND A MAJOR SOURCE OF OUTSIDE INCOME FOR THE EGYPTIAN ECONOMY. EVEN A PERCEIVED THREAT A MAJOR PROBLEM.

coolbert.