Egyptian authorities, already struggling with elusive terror cells in the
rugged Sinai Peninsula, moved quickly Tuesday, arresting 30 men in the triple
bombings that ripped apart a crowded resort town, killing 24 on a tranquil
holiday evening.
An Egyptian man sits
next to his destroyed shop Tuesday, April 25, 2006 at the site where one
of three bombs ripped through Egypt's Red Sea resort of Dahab Monday.
Three nearly simultaneous bombings hit this Egyptian beach resort popular
with foreigners Monday, killing at least 24 people on streets filled with
tourists and Egyptians enjoying a long weekend marking a national holiday.
[AP] |
Radical Muslim groups moved just as rapidly to distance themselves from the
Dahab attacks. The leader of Egypt's banned Muslim brotherhood condemned them as
"aggression on human souls created by God."
The militant Palestinian Hamas organization called them a "criminal attack
which is against all human values."
Many frightened tourists fled Sinai coastal resorts where two previous bomb
attacks — like the Dahab blasts — bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida-linked groups
that appear to have a free hand to continue operations in the barren, backward
and extremely rugged Sinai Peninsula.
Egyptian authorities — despite massive sweeps by thousands of troops and
hundreds of arrests after each previous Sinai attack — appeared increasingly
frustrated by the ease with which terrorists continue to hit the country's vital
tourism industry. It brought in $6.4 billion in 2005 and is the top source of
foreign exchange.
"This incident is addressed to the whole of Egypt, there is no reason for it
other than an attempt to destroy the economy of Egypt by attacking tourism,"
said Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif as he visited blast victims in a Sharm el-Sheik
hospital.
President Hosni Mubarak, who oversees an already-stagnant economy with
unemployment rising in lockstep with the population explosion, called the attack
a "sinful terrorist action."
The attacks came just one day after al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had urged
Muslims to support al-Qaida in what he called a war against Islam.
Egyptian officials have said local people were behind the previous bombings
in the Sinai, but outside security experts say Sinai's extremists seem either
al-Qaida linked or at least aligned with its views.
Security officials, who refused to be identified because they were not
authorized to release the information, said the remains of three men recovered
from the scene of the blasts were so badly torn apart that they could have been
suicide attackers.
Arabs throughout the Middle East voiced outrage, signaling a growing backlash
as fellow Muslims increasingly bear the brunt of terrorist attacks. Of the 24
dead in Dahab, 21 were Egyptians.
"I don't think these people care" if Muslims or Arabs are killed. "They'll
carry on at any price," said Lara Darwazah, a 31-year-old music teacher in
Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
All three Sinai bombings were timed to Egyptian national holidays when
resorts were especially crowded with local tourists as well as foreigners who
flock to the seaside towns, the world-renowned beaches and extraordinary reefs.
Taba and Ras Shitan in the northern Sinai near the Israeli border were hit
and 34 killed in October 2004, a day before the holiday marking the start of the
1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Last July 23 — Egypt's national day — suicide bombers killed 64 people,
mainly tourists, in Sharm el-Sheik on the southern tip of the Sinai.
Monday's Dahab bombings occurred on the eve of Sinai Liberation Day, when
Egypt regained full control of the peninsula from Israel in 1986. The tourist
population was swollen further by the coincidence of the long Coptic Christian
Easter weekend and an ancient Egyptian holiday to mark the start of spring.
Egypt's Sinai resorts are a tempting and virtually made-to-order target for
Islamic militants who were jailed by Mubarak or fled to safer territory and
became even more radical_ witness Egyptian physician Ayman al-Zawheri's
migration to Afghanistan and the No. 2 place in al-Qaida.
The isolated and desolate peninsula also has become a favored Israeli holiday
destination, making bombings there both a symbolic attack on Israelis and an
assault to undermine Mubarak's authority and rattle his tenuous economy.
Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said it was not immediately clear if the
attack could have been carried out by a group as organized as those who
detonated the earlier bombs. He said the explosives were different than those
used in Sharm el-Sheik or Taba.
The blasts were so powerful that police divers worked Tuesday to retrieve
body parts from the shallow waters of the sea, as workers swept shards of glass
from the streets. At one spot near the beach, two black sandals lay in a pool of
blood on a wooden footbridge.
Nearby, outside the supermarket where one blast occurred, a tiny shoe covered
in blood lay on top of a baby stroller. Witnesses said the stroller belonged to
foreign twin infants who they said looked European.
One twin was inside the shop with the mother when the blast occurred, and the
other outside in the stroller, said Mohammed Emad, 16, who sells spices at the
market and whose hand was hurt by flying glass.
The boy said he went with the mother and twins to hospital, where one of the
twins died. "I pushed the stroller away out of the doorway" after the blast, he
said.
El-Adly put the death toll at 23, including 20 Egyptians and three
foreigners. But Sinai hospital officials said Tuesday that an Egyptian man had
died of his wounds, bringing the toll to 24. The German Foreign Ministry said a
10-year-old German boy was among the dead.
Dr. Hazem Ahmed of Sharm el-Sheik Hospital said 85 people were wounded.
The World Economic Forum said it would go ahead with plans to hold a meeting
of Middle Eastern government and business leaders in Sharm-el-Sheik on May
20-22.
"For the sake of a more peaceful future for humankind we have to show our
solidarity by holding this meeting," said Klaus Schwab, the Geneva-based
convener of the forum, in a letter to Mubarak.
The Dahab attack seemed consistent with the aims of hardline al-Qaida
sympathizers, often called Salafists.
In contrast, groups like Hamas have been careful to say that their attacks
are aimed only against Israel, and are not part of a worldwide radical Islamic
jihad.