Pro-Hizbullah Group in Egypt?

Egypt is claiming to have arrested a group of Lebanese, Palestinians, and Israeli Arabs said to have links with Hizbullah and to be "promoting Shi‘ism in Egypt." Egyptian reportage in Arabic here; in English here; an Israeli take here, and the report Israeli Arabs were involved here.

Hizbullah always says it does not operate in other Arab countries, but various versions of the account also claim links to Hamas; there are claims that the group of nearly 50 had explosives and were studying the Egypt-Gaza border and the Sinai tourist resorts. All of this could fit with Israeli intelligence reports warning Israelis against visiting the Sinai over Passover for fear of terrorist attacks.

What strikes an odd note about the story is not that some Palestinians and Lebanese may have been plotting something in Sinai, but the reported involovement of Israeli Arabs is unusual outside of Israel at least, and the allegation that the group, which otherwise sounds like a conventional terrorist group, was planning to "spread Shi‘ism in Egypt."

Though Egypt was ruled by the Isma‘ili Fatimids nine cenuries ago and there is still an old Kufic inscription over one of Cairo's medieval gates with the phrase "‘Ali is the wali of God," Shi‘ism has not been very evident in Egypt since the fall of the Fatimids. But just recently we heard Morocco complaining of an Iranian-backed plot to spread Shi‘ism in Morocco. Is there some sinister Iranian plot to undermine Sunni Islam? More likely, I suspect, this is a means of rallying the Sunni population of Egypt, who generally were critical of their own government during the Gaza operation, by portraying the threat as coming primarily from Hizbullah rather than from Hamas, whose links to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood make it an awkward subject for the government. Morocco, I think, is doing something similar to demonize Iran. That's just an initial reaction and there may be more to this than meets the eye, but I suspect that spreading Shi‘ism was not high on the agenda of those arrested.