Egyptian police fight battles as blast probe widens
Mon Jul 25, 2005 5:59 PM BST
Tourists Return From Egypt
By Cynthia Johnston
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian police fought gunbattles in desert mountains near the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday in a hunt for militants who killed at least 64 people in a bomb attack.
Two days after Egypt's worst attack since 1981, police were surrounding a group of Bedouins suspected of having links to three blasts which tore through hotels and shopping areas popular among foreign tourists.
A police source said 25 Bedouins had been arrested after an exchange of fire with police in the hills inland from the hamlet of el-Ruwaisat, north of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Security sources earlier said the Bedouins were believed to be protecting two Pakistanis wanted for questioning but authorities later played down that version.
Authorities said police had been able to track the course of two vehicles used in the attacks and that the suspected bombers came over the mountains from the northern hamlet of Ras Sidr, on the west coast of the Sinai peninsula, posing as quarry workers.
At least 64 people, mostly Egyptians, died in the attacks, Minister of Tourism Ahmed el-Maghrabi said. That figure, however, does not take into account additional body parts.
Officials at Sharm el-Sheikh International Hospital on Saturday put the number of dead at 88.
Seven non-Egyptians, including two Italians, one Briton, one American and a Czech, have been confirmed dead. Ten Britons and four Italians are still missing.
U.S. President George W. Bush said in Washington he had told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Americans were determined to help ""bring justice to those people who kill innocent people."
"They have no heart. They have no conscience," he said after signing a condolence book at the Egyptian embassy.
PHOTOS OF FOREIGNERS
At roadblocks in and near Sharm el-Sheikh, authorities distributed photographs of some 50 foreigners, including five Pakistanis, who police said may be linked to the attacks. A security source later said the Pakistanis were wanted for questioning and that they were not the prime suspects.
Some of the 50 people wanted for questioning were "known international terrorists", security sources said.
Police named Pakistanis Mohammad Anwar, 30, Rashid Ali, 26, Mohammad Akhtar, 30, Tasadduq Husseinm, 18 and Mohammad Arif, 36, but, sources said, it was unclear if they had been staying in the town.
Islamic militants, mostly home-grown, have launched attacks against Egypt's $6 billion tourist industry, but the involvement of Pakistanis, if confirmed, would be unprecedented.
Arab satellite channels said up to nine Pakistanis had been staying in hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh but disappeared after the bombings early on Saturday morning, leaving their passports at reception. Al Jazeera said the suspects might have entered the country using forged Jordanian passports.
A Pakistani embassy official in Cairo told Reuters his country was urgently requesting information from the Egyptian authorities. In Islamabad, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman said Pakistanis wre unlikely to have been involved.
Interpol, the international police body, said it had offered to help Egyptian authorities.
Suspicion also has fallen on a group police said probably had links with those who attacked hotels in Sinai last year in which 34 people were killed. A Palestinian leading an unaffiliated group had been blamed for that blast.
South Sinai governor Mustafa Afifi said a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the Ghazala Garden hotel after running over two policemen. He said the body of the attacker had been found but he did not identify him.
A second car, which exploded at Sharm's old market, was to be used against another hotel. It was unclear why the attacker left the car in the market or what triggered the explosion.
The attacks cast a shadow over the tourism sector, which employs more than one million people.
France on Monday discouraged French tourists from travelling to Sharm el-Sheikh and the United States has urged its citizens to avoid the south Sinai and crowded tourist sites in Cairo.
In the first political casualty after the bombings, Police Major-General Hamdi Ghali, who is the police chief in the Egyptian province of South Sinai, lost his job and is under investigation, official sources said on Monday.
Financial markets were more measured. Eyptian stocks recovered some ground. The benchmark Hermes index, which fell more than 3 percent on Sunday, rose 0.4 percent, to close on Monday. The Egyptian pound, vulnerable in the past to any hint of setbacks to tourism, held steady at 5.77 to the dollar.
today.reuters.co.uk
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