Anti-Terror Branch of NSC: High chance that terror cells will attempt to kidnap Israelis in the area.
By HERB KEINONSinai tourists 224.88(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Sinai-based gangs have immediate plans to kidnap Israelis and transfer them to terrorist organizations, senior security officials said Tuesday, explaining a new warning against Israeli travel to the Sinai.
The National Security Council's Counter Terrorism Bureau renewed and reissued its advisory against traveling to Sinai, saying that "activity by terrorist elements in the Sinai Peninsula, who are working in order to abduct Israelis, raises the possibility that they intend to perpetrate such an abduction in the very near, even immediate, future."
Security officials said that the new warning was in no way connected to the prisoner release for kidnapped reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
The officials put the number of Israelis in the Sinai at "a few hundred," made up primarily of Israeli youth, but also including a number of Israelis who go to gamble at the hotel in Taba.
The NSC characterized the terrorist threat as "concrete" and "very high," and not only warned Israelis against traveling there, but also urged those already in the area to leave immediately.
Regarding cooperation with the Egyptian authorities in Sinai, the officials said "we do what we need to do with the Egyptians."
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