Egyptian Arrests and Jihadist Engineers

BBC is one of several news outlets reporting on a foiled plot to target the Suez Canal (see below). Aside from the mostly Egyptian militants having ties to Palestinian AQ-affiliated jihadists, the most interesting piece of article is the professional backgrounds of the plotters. They were mostly “engineers and technicians.”

While everyone and their brother (Krueger, Sageman, etc.) have long shown that terrorists tend to be well educated and middle class like other politically active individuals… this case fits even better with Diego Gambetta’s interesting research into why some ideological violence appears to be closely tied to folks with Engineering backgrounds. See his paper Engineers of Jihad at http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/Engineers%20of%20Jihad.pdf

And watch out for those bearing blueprints and schematics….




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8142823.stm

Egypt arrests 25 in 'Suez plot'

“The group planned to use explosives fitted with mobile phone-activated detonators against shipping in the canal, the statement said.

It said that most of those arrested were engineers or technicians.

‘They believe in takfiri and jihadi thought,’ said the statement, referring to the radical ideology followed by al-Qaeda. Takfir is the doctrine of declaring people to be unbelievers who are fit to be killed and jihad means holy war.”



UPDATE (7/15/09):

Tim at UBIWAR is citing a newer Gambetta/Hertog article in New Scientist on similar subject matter.