Armed Bedouin Besiege Sinai Peacekeeper Camp

Armed Bedouin were besieging an international peacekeepers' camp in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Thursday to press for the release of jailed tribesmen, security officials told Agence France Presse.

The Bedouin maintaining the week-long siege have set up stone barricades around the camp in north Sinai and prevented soldiers with the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) from entering or leaving, the officials said.

The Bedouin cut the barbed wire fence surrounding the camp on Wednesday and threatened to storm in if their fellow tribesmen, jailed by Egyptian police, were not released, the officials said.

The peacekeeping mission, which has contingents from 12 countries including the United States, is tasked with monitoring a 1979 peace treaty with neighboring Israel.

The siege, roughly 15 kilometers from the Gaza border, underlines Cairo's diminishing authority over the Sinai, despite a military-led operation last year to uproot radicals from the restive mountainous and desert peninsula.

Police prefer to negotiate with the better armed tribesman, rather than risk a deadly confrontation, officials said.

The tribesmen whose release is being demanded include both common law convicts and terror suspects, officials said.

Those laying siege to the camp are armed with machineguns and rocket propelled grenades.

Sinai, home to some of the country's most lucrative tourist resorts as well as a Bedouin population embittered by decades of neglect, witnessed an armed insurrection last year as the country rose up against president Hosni Mubarak.

Since his overthrow in February 2011, Bedouin militants have blown up a pipeline that supplies gas to Israel and Jordan 13 times, and Islamist Bedouin have attacked police stations.

Some Bedouin have also taken to briefly kidnapping foreign tourists and workers to press for the release of jailed clansmen.

The army's campaign against the militants last year, which met with only limited success, marked the first time they had entered towns so close to the Gaza border since the signing of the treaty with Israel.

The treaty stipulated that Egyptian troops stay out of border areas but Israel reportedly gave its okay to the operation.