Hezbollah tactics on the southern border

The Sinai peninsula has been a breeding ground for terrorists, and for global jihad in particular, for the better part of the past decade. There is a serious lack of Egyptian control over this area, a problem that has intensified since the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Home-grown terror from the local nomadic Bedouin population is proliferating, and there are multiple reasons for this: They control many areas of the Sinai; the area is rife with tourist attractions and as such attracts many foreigners - a juicy target for terrorists; and it is far away from the Egyptian mainland and is thus out of direct sight.

All of this has led to deadly terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, shooting, and rocket attacks. Although attacks are usually limited to the Sinai itself, targeted at tourist hot spots, the peninsula has occasionally served as a staging ground for attacks on Israel and Jordan.

The Egyptian government's control over the Sinai, historically weak, has eroded even further in the wake of the fall of the Mubarak regime. Egyptian intelligence, preoccupied in the main with the transition of power in Cairo, has lost some of its efficacy. Egyptian military and police have been focusing on maintaining order on the Egyptian mainland; Egypt's new, less confrontational policy toward Gaza has allowed terrorists and arms to move much more freely between Sinai and the Gaza Strip. Various homegrown and international terrorist organizations have tightened their grip of the area in recent months, recruiting local Bedouins and building weapon caches and arms manufacturing plants.

The terrorists calculate that Israel would never jeopardize its relations with Egypt through anti-terrorist military action inside the Sinai - sovereign Egyptian territory.

The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), who were behind Thursday's multi-pronged terrorist attack in southern Israel, appear to be gaining in strength. The sophistication of Thursday's attacks bear the hallmarks of Hezbollah's modus operandi in Lebanon. The PRC has ties to Hezbollah as well as to Hezbollah's benefactor Iran, and we should take a closer look at the involvement of both in this latest incident.

Dr. Boaz Ganor is the executive director of the International Institute for Counterterrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.