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Monday, August 02, 2010

Rocket lands in Jordan, deja vu

From YNet:

Five rockets were fired towards Eilat and the Jordanian port city of Aqaba Monday morning. There were no reports of injury or damage in Eilat. One of the projectiles landed in an open area in Israel's southernmost city, three more landed in the Red Sea - two of them in Jordanian territory - while a fifth rocket hit Aqaba.

Jordanian authorities said a Grad rocket landed near vehicles parked at the entrance to the InterContinental Hotel in Aqaba. Local media outlets reported that five people were injured in the attack. The hotel's public relations director told Ynet it was not damaged.

The IDF estimates the rockets were fired from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula by Global Jihad terrorists. Large police forces have been dispatched to the scene.

However, Egyptian security officials said the attack did not originate in the Sinai Peninsula.

"Firing rockets from Egypt requires extensive logistical preparations and a lot of equipment. This is impossible because Sinai is heavily secured," one official said.
This is almost exactly the same as an event from April when two Katyushas were shot towards Eilat, one landing in Jordan.

The idea that the Sinai is so secure is laughable, as smugglers of drugs and people seem to get through the border every day and Israel is planning to build a fence specifically to stop such activities.

While commenter L. King during the last event somewhat whimsically floated the idea that the rockets could have theoretically come from Saudi Arabia, it appears that in both cases the attackers came from Egypt.

UPDATE: Joel comments that the Debka site - which is often unreliable but occasionally gets stuff right - is saying that the rockets came from Jordan's Edom Mountains, and that there is Jordanian helicopter activity in the area now.

UPDATE 2: One of the people injured in Aqaba has died.