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Sinai Peninsula remains security headache for Sisi

Many Sinai residents blame coercive security practices by the Egyptian military as the cause of instability.
A burnt car is seen in a damaged house after assaults on militants by the Egyptian Army, in a village on the outskirts of Sheikh Zuweid, near the city of El-Arish in Egypt's Sinai peninsula September 10, 2013. Egypt has tightened control of crossings from the Sinai peninsula and continued assaults on militants after an Islamist group based there said it tried to kill the interior minister in Cairo last week, the state news agency reported on Monday. REUTERS/Stringer  (EGYPT - Tags: POLITICS) - RTX13GQ7
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SHEIKH ZUWEID, Egypt — The Sinai Peninsula has become one of the most dangerous places in Egypt. It used to be an example of calm and relaxation before 2004, when the Sinai’s people remained far from the wave of terrorism that hit Egypt in the 1990s.

Since 2004, the Sinai Peninsula has been hit by a number of terrorist incidents, the first of which were three simultaneous bombings in Taba, Nuweiba and Ras Shaitan in October 2004. That triple bombing killed 34 and wounded 125, most of them Israeli tourists. Then in July 2005, Sharm el-Sheikh was struck by three bombings that killed more than 88 people. There was another attack in April 2007 with three bombings that killed 23 people in the city of Dahab.

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