7-Oct-13: Deepening chaos in Egypt and Sinai

Security service building in El Tor, Sinai, shortly after today's attack
[Image Source]

An item we posted here just four days ago starts with these words:

Egypt's Sinai peninsula has been seriously chaotic for years.

There's a further reminder today of how the Israel/Arab conflict is very much not at the center of regional conflict, but ongoing terrorism is.

Egypt and its Sinai region continued to descend relentlessly into an ever-expanding, terror-rich chaos. From today's Washington Post:

• "A bomb exploded outside a security building in the restive Sinai Peninsula Monday morning... in the south Sinai town of El Tor, killing three police officers and wounding 48, according to a statement by the interior ministry. The shrapnel from the blast tore open all four floors of the building’s facade"
• "Gunmen attacked a security convoy near the Suez Canal... "

while yesterday (Sunday)

• "Thousands of supporters of ousted leader Mohammed Morsi fought with security forces Sunday leaving at least 53 people dead and nearly 300 wounded... the deadliest day this nation has seen since the new, military-backed government launched a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which backs Morsi, in August... The rash of violence on Sunday and Monday appeared likely to derail the new government’s hopes of reviving Egypt’s tourism-dependent economy in the midst of its political crackdown."

About that El Tor bombing, AP reports in the past hour, quoting Egypt's Interior Minister, that it was the work of what it calls

"a suicide bomber... signaling what could be the spread of attacks by Islamic militants... Near-daily attacks against security forces and soldiers in the volatile northern Sinai Peninsula have increasingly resembled a full-fledged insurgency..." [AP]

Though it's widely used in the reports from Egypt, we believe the expression suicide bomber is highly inappropriate. No bomber ever exploded because she or he wants to suicide. It's always about hurting the other, the hated enemy. That hatred is so vast that, even if it costs the life of the bomber, it's done willingly and with zeal. We ought to be calling them lethal cultists, murderous obsessives, religiously programmed killers. But placing the emphasis on how they forfeit their own lives is to completely miss the point of a self-negating overwhelming hatred that threatens our societies wherever we are.