Egyptian officials have made conflicting statements as to whether the July 23 bombings in Sharm al-Sheikh, the deadliest terror attack on Egyptian soil, are the work of a locally-based, isolated network or an affiliate of the international al-Qaeda radical movement.

The statements also leave open a third possibility - a local network in part motivated by local grievances that is operationally independent of al-Qaeda, but which exchanges information with the larger movement and claims a common cause.