Vast areas of Egypt's Sinai Desert have descended into lawlessness in recent months, providing fertile ground for cells of extremist militants that have quietly established training camps near the Israeli border, Bedouin elders and security experts have said.

The militants include men who have fought in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as Islamists released from prison after the 2011 popular revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

The militants have become increasingly bold amid a broader breakdown of security in the strategically important desert, a buffer between Israel and Egypt. The eclipse of authority has also given rise to sharia courts.

The government's failure to restore order in the Sinai has unnerved Israel, in part because of a recent attack on a border post. Some residents worry Israel may respond unilaterally. The Sinai was contested territory for much of the past century. After wars with Israel, Egypt regained control of the Sinai in the 1979 treaty brokered by the United States.

A US Army battalion consisting of several hundred soldiers is stationed in the Sinai as part of an international peacekeeping force.

Militants have been attacking lightly armed police and have repeatedly bombed the pipeline that carries natural gas to Israel. Bedouin tribesmen with grievances against the state, meanwhile, have kidnapped foreign tourists and international peacekeepers. Drug runners and human smugglers are plying a violent trade.

The retired Egyptian general Sameh Saif el-Yazal said the status quo in the Sinai was untenable. ''The government must impose its control and rule over Sinai. Right now the law is not respected.''

A police official based in Sinai's Arish said men such as himself were being hunted. ''Why are we coming home as dead bodies?'' he asked. ''We want to know why.''

A Bedouin elder who lives near the Israeli border, Ibrahim el-Meneey, said tribes that had stockpiled small arms and anti-aircraft missiles were dealing with violent human smugglers, drug runners and other miscreants who had taken advantage of the security vacuum during the past year.

But if the Egyptian government failed to find the right approach to restore security and services, he said: ''This could become like a second Afghanistan.''

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Editor's Note: Yeah...how's that "hopey," "changey," Arab Spring working out for everyone?


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