Plot thickens..pipeline to israel and Jordan to Syria attacked according to Wall Street Journal, blamed on Bedoiuns, except they say it wasn't them.....fyi.......mmmmmm.....Jordan-Syria next??.....TM7
By SUMMER SAID And MATT BRADLEY
MIDDLE EAST NEWS FEBRUARY 5, 2011, 4:14 A.M. ET
An Egyptian gas pipeline supplying Jordan and Israel was attacked Saturday, state television reported.
Egypt closed the pipeline after it was attacked in the Sinai peninsula. Egyptian state TV quoted the Sinai governor saying the fire has been controlled.
The identity of the attackers wasn't known, but the power vacuum created by nearly two weeks of massive demonstrations against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak has unsettled conditions on the peninsula, which separates the Egyptian mainland from Israel.
In a sign of the rising tensions, Bedouin in the northern Sinai on Friday used rocket-propelled grenades to attack the headquarters of Egypt's state security in El Arish, a town close to Egypt's border crossing into Gaza, according to witnesses.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week agreed to let Egypt deploy 800 additional troops to the Sinai, to replace the police and stabilize the area, though the two countries' peace accords stipulate the peninsula should be demilitarized.
Friday's attack on the state security building is the latest in steadily rising tide of violence on the peninsula. Earlier in the week, Mohammed Abu Ras, the leader of a Bedouin tribe who enjoyed friendly relations with the Egyptian forces, was gunned down outside a meeting between tribal leaders and Egyptian army generals, in a vendetta killing that fed fears of rising conflict.
Sinai Bedouins are also widely suspected of having bombed a natural-gas pipeline that connects Egypt with Jordan and Syria in June. That attack followed a series of violent confrontations with police.
One person close to the Sinai Bedouin said he doubted they were involved in the current attack.
Egypt supplies all of Jordan's gas needs, amounting to some 240 million cubic feet a day used to fuel power plants as well as for heating and cooking. Egypt is also a major supplier of gas to Israel.
There were conflicting reports as to which branch of the pipeline were affected.
— Hassan Hafidh contributed to this story.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@dowjones.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704843304576125510103424894.html 
