Jihadist Return Is Said to Drive Attacks in Egypt

In just the last two weeks, Islamist militants have detonated a car bomb at the gates of the capital’s security headquarters, gunned down a senior Interior Ministry official in broad daylight and shot down a military helicopter over Sinai with a portable surface-to-air missile.

But perhaps most alarming to officials in Cairo and Washington are the signs that the swift increase in the scale and effectiveness of the attacks may come from a new influx of fighters: Egyptians returning from jihad abroad to join a campaign of terrorism against the military-backed government.

“Egypt is again an open front for jihad,” said Brian Fishman, a researcher in counterterrorism at the New America Foundation in Washington. “The world is being turned on its head, and, for the United States, the ability to rely on Egypt as a stabilizing force in the region — rather than a source of problems — is really being challenged.”

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A few weeks later, another fighter, Saeed al-Shahat, blew himself up with an explosive vest as police were raiding his home. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis said he, too, had recently returned from Syria. (Their shared path was first reported by David Barnett, a researcher with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington who follows the group.)

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