The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which clinched power in Egypt after the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak, claimed on Monday that Israel was behind the terror attack along the Egypt-Israel border on Sunday night.
Terrorists attacked two Egyptian army posts in the Egyptian part of Rafiah with anti-tank rockets and gunfire, killing 16 Egyptian officers and soldiers. The terrorists then tried to infiltrate into Israel using two stolen Egyptian military vehicles, but were foiled by the IDF.
The Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement quoted by the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm that the attack “could be attributed to the Mossad, which has been seeking to abort the Egyptian revolution, especially as it had several days ago instructed Israeli citizens who were in Sinai to leave immediately.”
The statement also said that the incident “aims to add problems at the border to those already plaguing the country internally following the collapse of a corrupt system, and attempts to claim the failure of the new Egyptian government that was formed only three days ago.”
“The incident is also an attempt to disrupt the president’s reform project and drive a wedge between the Egyptian administration and its people, and the Palestinian government and the people of Gaza,” the statement concluded.
Dr. Hilmi al-Gazar, a member of the Supreme Council of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party, told a local network that the Israeli Mossad was able to penetrate into the organization which carried out the attack and direct its activities.
He claimed that the timing of the attack, which took place during the meal which marks the end of the Ramadan fast day, and the lack of preparedness on the part of the Egyptian soldiers who were killed, proved that the Israeli intelligence service was behind the terrorist act.
Meanwhile, an organization identified with the Salafi movement in Egypt condemned the IDF for destroying the two Egyptian armored vehicles stolen by the terrorists, and argued that Israel should have taken over the vehicles, refrained from attacking them and detained the terrorists so they could be questioned.
The organization claimed that perhaps Israel's intention by attacking the armored vehicles was to destroy evidence of its involvement in the attack.
An IDF investigation of the terror attack indicates that the terrorists were able to blow open a fence on the Gaza border by blowing up 500 kilograms of explosives, that were stored inside a truck.
The operation, top IDF officials said, presents a “worrying picture of the intentions of terrorist groups to attack Israel.”
A previously unknown group, the Shura Mujahadeen Council, took responsibility for the attack. The group posted a Facebook message praising the attack, and saying that “there is no place in the Arab and Muslim world for liberal and secular democratic values,” and that they were “dedicated to the struggle against Zionism.” The perpetrators are suspected to be Sinai Bedouin.