The Egyptian military has retracted a claim from earlier this month that they had killed 20 “militants” in the Sinai Peninsula in a helicopter attack on a village, and seven other a few days later, saying that only 11 people have been killed in their entire offensive since it began at the start of the month.
The statement put the overall toll in “Operation Eagle,” which began on August 5 after an attack on a police station, at 11 “terrorists” killed, one wounded, and 23 people arrested.
This is a surprisingly low toll for what was supposed to be an extremely high profile crackdown, and particularly one which Egypt has used to justify deploying tanks into the peninsula, fueling a row with Israel.
The low figures are doubly concerning when one considers Egyptian media reports of troops forcing their way into random Sinai homes looking for “suspects.” If a month of operations has only netted 23 arrests, it seems difficult to justify full scale raids on entire villages.
"… a surprisingly low toll…" One explanation might be that the "terrorists" they were looking for returned to Israel before the Egyptians arrived – they didn't expect to have tanks roll after them…which might explain why the Israelis were sooooo upset about the Egyptian response. Afterall, the intent was probably to just make things unsettled for the new Egyptian leadership…things weren't supposed to get confrontational, you know.
The corporatist elite have decided that they like the term "terrorist" and use it now to justify assaulting the population under the rubric of "fighting terrorists." It's a nice inclusive term…intentionally ambiguous…and as yet acceptable to the citizens who prefer to have the Archons protect them from the bad guys…no questions asked.
Not only that but when was the last time (hell, when was the first time for that matter) that you saw a so-called "Isreali" with balls? And, no, no, no, I don't mean Matzo Balls but the hairy things that dangle below the circumcision. Courage is not something they lot is known for even if many confuse balls/courage with Chutzpah.
Uh, huh. Disheartening to see that in spite everything that has happened in Egypt, nothing has changed. They're still kowtowing the lies of the US and its handlers in Isreal and serving only those interests over the welfare and wishes of their own people. Just like in the US.