26 suspected al-Qaeda operatives arrested in Egypt

The group had been communicating with terror outfits linked with Al-Qaeda via the Internet and was planning to attack vital sectors in the country,such as the Suez Canal and oil pipelines,Egyptian security sources said.

The arrest comes at a time when Egypt is working hard to foil attempts by foreign terror outfits to deploy extremists inside the country or dispatch elements from outside.

Some of the group members being engineers and technicians were able to develop electronic circuits for explosion using infrared rays,the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

They also used Global Positioning System (GPS) devices for navigation purposes,and received online donations collected for supporting Islamic charity,the security sources said.

The members,also implicated in armed robbery,admitted to attacking a jewellery shop in Cairo district of El-Zaytoun and killing its owner and four workers in May 2008.

All the 26 members of the group have confessed they intended to conduct terror operations in the country. In May,Egypt announced arrests of seven alleged members of the Palestinian Army of Islam for the bombing in February at Cairo’s Khan el-Khalili bazaar that killed one French woman.