Terrorism in Egypt

Renowned for its beaches and scuba diving, the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh had become a vacationing hot spot for Europeans, Israelis and Arabs alike. But its bustling nightlife was shattered late last week by three nearly simultaneous explosions that killed at least 88 and wounded more than 200. The deadliest terrorist attack in Egypt since 1981--in a town considered secure enough to host cease-fire talks last winter between Israel's Ariel Sharon and Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas--comes less than two months before voters will decide whether President Hosni Mubarak gets a fifth six-year term in office. Mubarak's long run has hinged on his fight against terrorism while bolstering the economy through tourism. By attacking a hotel, a market and a parking lot near bars and shops, terrorists apparently hope to undermine his progress on both fronts.

Middle East experts and diplomats in Washington foresee grim implications for Egypt and other pro-Western governments that terrorists may regard as insufficiently Muslim. The U.S. has been pushing Mubarak to democratize. But Wayne White, a former top Middle East expert in the State Department, predicts that the Egyptian government will let terrorists goad it into overreacting. In recent years, White says, authoritarian governments in the region became convinced that "if you loosen up, you're in trouble." More worrisome: one of the groups claiming responsibility for the blasts said it has ties to al-Qaeda. "It is part of a bigger project that entails confronting America and Israel and, after that, nonmilitant Arab regimes," says Egyptian political analyst Hala Mustafa. If al-Qaeda is moving back into a global operational mode, it would a be a blow to the Bush Administration, says former White House deputy homeland-security adviser Richard Falkenrath, because "we'd all come to believe that we had decimated the al-Qaeda leadership." --By Daniel Kadlec. Reported by Timothy J. Burger, Scott MacLeod, Elaine Shannon and Lindsay Wise