ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

FILE IMAGE: The charred remains of an armored vehicle are loaded onto a truck after a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a police checkpoint in el-Arish, Egypt, July 12, 2013. (AP/Muhammed Sabry) On Monday, five Egyptian policemen were killed and six others were wounded in two separate roadside bomb attacks in the Sinai peninsula. The Five policemen were as a result of the roadside bombe explosion in the city of Arish. Three others were wounded in the incident. The second roadside bomb targeted the vehicle arriving the scene and injured three more policemen. At the same day, Egyptian Air Force F-16 warplanes bombed gatherings of suspected militants in various areas across the northern part of the peninsula allegedly killing some 30 militants. On Sunday,  the Egyptian Air Force destroyed 15 vehicles belonging to militants . The vehicles wer loaded with weapons, ammunition, explosives and prohibited materials and were attempting to enter Egypt from Libya.

The latest in a series of moves by President Trump that appeared to throw a wrench into State Department efforts to calm the Qatar blockade situation saw him telling the Saudi King today that the  US could well just abandon their largest military base in the Middle East, the al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar . Officials from the blockading states have previously suggested that the US ought to consider finding an alternative to the Qatar base, as State and Pentagon officials express concern the protracted blockade could start impacting US wars in the region, which are run out of the base. This is a hugely important base for the US, and that’s a big part of why State Department officials have been so desperate to try to resolve the dispute. President Trump, however, has treated this base with relative ambivalence, and in his talk with King Salman today said he was confident other countries in the region would “gladly” build the US a replacement base if they abandoned Qatar. Trump may be