Cairo, Egypt ? When terrorists blew themselves up in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula this week, the radical Palestinian group Hamas quickly joined Arab governments and Western leaders in condemning a “criminal attack against all human values.”

Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood called the bombings “aggression on human souls created by God.”

The denunciations were unexpectedly harsh from the Islamic fundamentalist groups – Hamas has killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in suicide bombings, and the Brotherhood is determined to impose an Islamic government – but experts agree that radical Muslim organizations want to distance themselves from al-Qaida.

The widening rift largely has not been acknowledged among Western powers, who tend to lump Islamic radicals together.

Scholars of Islamic movements and some Western policymakers, however, say distinctions now must be made between hard-line Islamist organizations and “holy warrior” groups such as Osama bin Laden’s terror network.

“There is a fundamental difference between Islamic groups: Most are sociopolitical reformists, others are religious extremists,” said Dia’a Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on radical groups.

Hamas and Hezbollah, for example, have national agendas, he said. They want to reorganize society according to Sharia, or Islamic law.

Egyptians light candles Wednesday in Dahab, Egypt, at the site where one of three bombs ripped through Egypt's Red Sea resort Monday. Three nearly simultaneous bombings hit this Egyptian beach resort popular with foreigners Monday, killing at least 24 people.

Extremist religious movements such as al-Qaida are international revolutionaries who excoriate not only non-Muslims but also Muslims who fail to follow their views. Theirs is a holy war to spread their views among Muslims and to repel any “infidel invasion” of Islamic lands.

“Branding these two branches of radicalism the same way, as terrorist organizations, reflects a complete misunderstanding of the issue,” he said.

He said that to fight an enemy, one had to define it correctly: “America doesn’t, and this is why it is losing the war on terrorism.”

U.S. policymakers and the State Department did not respond to requests by The Associated Press for comment.

Leaders from both branches of radical Islam frequently join in a call to destroy Israel and form an Islamic superstate of all Muslim countries.

But the similarities are mostly rhetorical, said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

“The rift is widening, partly because most governments have become more open to engaging in a dialogue with hard-line Islamic voices if they give up violence,” he said in a telephone interview.

And in most Muslim countries, he said, the population has been more willing to engage with national radicals than with “millennial” movements that view Israel and the West as apocalyptic enemies.

By cracking down on al-Qaida but allowing more freedom to political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Arab states were in effect “creating more daylight” between revolutionary and reformist radicals, he said.

“Realistically, part of the U.S. policy is influenced by the attitude of host countries,” Alterman said.