(By Matthew Axelrod and Joseph Simons)
Here’s a first-blush report on yesterday evening’s bombing in Cairo:
The attack targeted a café in a tourist area and was clearly aimed at foreigners. The bombs were rudimentary, which means they were either manufactured by amateurs or perpetrators posing as amateurs.
Mainstream Egyptian media and a number of Egyptian bloggers have posed two possible motives for the bombing: (1) a violent response to the government’s controversial handling of the Gaza issue, or (2) a cynical move by regime forces to manufacture a need for a continued Emergency Law (set to be reviewed next month).
The first is the more likely of the two motives. There was widespread dissent over Egypt’s refusal to open the Rafah Border to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza during Israel’s assault last month. With Gaza as an immediate cause, this bombing could be an attempt to punish the Egyptian regime by attacking one of its major revenue sources and by challenging its monopoly on power. The aim would be to remind the government that there are real consequences for its unpopular actions. It would also demonstrate that restricting political avenues for dissent opens the path the violence.
As for the cynical motive, we doubt that the Egyptian Government or its hardline elements would condone attacking foreigners. Any move on their behalf to justify a new Emergency Law would not put such an important economic sector at risk.
But who did it? The Egyptian opposition paper Al-Dustour argues that the attack was not the work of a professional, organized group but rather of a “small group,” as the bombs used were basic and easy to assemble. Indeed, the majority of jihadi/terrorist groups operating in Egypt have either been neutralized or have renounced violence.
We’d also like to point out how quickly the news of the attack spread in at least one part of the Egyptian community, those bloggers and expats using services like Twitter. Read a great account of it here.
The Egyptian-run “Egyptian Chronicles” blog, also has some interesting thoughts about the attack and about some of what the government has been saying about who might be responsible.
