Al Qa'ida in the Sinai Pensinsula?

Bruce Reidel has an interesting (and frightening) article in today's Daily Beast on the possible emergence of "Al Qa'ida in the Sinai Peninsula."  Reidel is correct to note that al-Qa'ida is "not about to take over the Sinai, and the group's Shura Council may never give its formal sanction to the network operating in the peninsula," but that "Even a relatively small number of terrorists hiding in the remote mountains of the central Sinai would be a dangerous threat to the stability of the region." 

He goes on to list a number of potential threats (i.e. to the Egypt-Israel gas pipeline, to tourists at Sharm al-Sheikh, to U.S. and other peacekeepers), but I think the major risk is that these jihadists will somehow provoke an Israeli-Egyptian clash of arms, similar to last Thursday's, but on a much larger scale.  The value of the Camp David Accords is that by securing Israel's western flank, it made a region-wide conflagration nearly impossible.  Post-Mubarak, this cold peace is not guaranteed, and it doesn't take a leap of imagination to realize how damaging a new round of Arab-Israeli wars would be to the Western economies that are already likely to be facing a period of instability for the near future.

This is an unlikely scenario, to be sure, as Egypt has strong incentives to target any al-Qa'ida affiliate within its borders, and should be able to develop a modus vivendi with Israel to counter this threat.  (For example, the Lebanese Armed Forces, impotent as they are against Hezbollah, are effective at targeting al-Qa'ida activities in Palestinian refugee camps in that country).  But the potential downsides of this development are still enough to give one pause.