The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) moves through the Suez Canal for the last time in this October 12, 2012 photograph released on October 15, 2012. Enterprise was deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility conducting maritime security operations, theater security cooperation efforts and support missions for Operation Enduring Freedom. The U.S. Navy is reliable, flexible, and ready to respond worldwide on, above, and below the sea. REUTERS/Stephen Wolff/U.S. Navy photo/Handout
What If Insurgents Close The Suez Canal? -- L.A. Times
Islamist violence has chased off tourists. Now it threatens that key waterway — and the nation's entire economy.
Most of the attention these days is on Syria, but there is also a growing problem in Egypt with global implications. Nine Egyptian policemen were wounded by a bomb in the northern Sinai Peninsula on Monday. The week before, suicide bombers killed nine soldiers in the peninsula. Shootings, kidnappings and bombings — roadside, car and suicide — have become routine occurrences in Sinai. And the burgeoning Islamist insurgency is spreading to other parts of Egypt. In early September, the interior minister narrowly survived a car-bomb attack in Cairo reportedly perpetrated by a Sinai-based jihadist group.
Already reeling from more than two years of civil insurrection, a spike in crime, an epidemic of sexual assault and the military's killing in August of nearly 1,000 Islamists protesting the coup that removed the elected Muslim Brotherhood president from office, the insurgency is bad news for Egypt.
But things could get worse.
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My Comment: If successful, Egypt's main source of foreign revenue will be cut with long term implications to them, the region, and the global economy.
