Egypt: Security, Threats, and Politics

As the Egyptian expands detentions of suspects, jailing 49 people accused of connections with Hezbollah, Theodore May of Global Post offers an overview of the groups accused by Egypt as threats to security:

Security Watch Egypt: Another Threat Emerges

Earlier this month, the Egyptian government detained 49 people on the Sinai Peninsula, accusing them of being members of a Hezbollah cell determined to execute attacks on Egyptian soil. It’s a sensational accusation that might give further evidence to the rising cooperation between Islamist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood. It would also speak to continued tensions in the Arab world over Egypt’s relationship with Israel.

It only takes spending a couple of hours in Egypt to discover that the entire structure of the Egyptian state is centered around the security apparatus. Policemen dot nearly every street corner in the city, plain-clothes agents patrol tourist hotspots, and the military runs checkpoints on highways throughout the country.

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Beyond Roxana Saberi: Javed Iqbal Jailed in US for Al-Manar News Broadcasts

This week Javed Iqbal, a Pakistani citizen and US resident, was jailed for six years for carrying the broadcasts of al-Manar, the television channel affiliated with the Lebanese political movement Hezbollah.

Iqbal, through his New York-based company HDTV Ltd, broadcast al-Manar for several months between 2005 and 2006 to paying customers. For prosecutors, this made him "Hezbollah's man in New York City". A second defendant connected with HDTV Ltd, Saleh Elahwal, has pled guilty and awaits sentencing.

Al-Manar is an established broadcaster in the Middle East, and its footage has been used by other outlets such as Fox and CNN. (I have been interviewed for their English-language programmes and follow their news output closely.) However, US authorities added al-Manar to its list of terrorist organisations in 2004, warning that that anyone who "solicits funds or other things of value for al-Manar" would be prosecuted. Other countries, including France and Canada, also imposed a ban, although the channel is easily accessed via the Internet.

Apart from a brief article by Adam Liptak in The New York Times in October 2007, there has been no attention to the case in the US.