At least 22 people were killed and 150 wounded as three blasts rocked a market and a busy restaurant area in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Dahab on Monday during the high tourism season, state television said.
There was no immediate word on the nationality of the victims, in the third such attack in the Sinai in 18 months.
The Dahab (”gold” in Arabic) resort is popular with Western backpackers and budget Israeli tourists.
Many Egyptians were also vacationing in the Sinai peninsula as the bombings struck on Sham al-Nessim, a public holiday that traditionally marks the beginning of spring.
”Around 7 pm [4pm GMT], we heard three explosions close to the seafront alongside a supermarket in the centre of Dahab,” French tourist Frederic Mingeon said from the town. ”There was a plume of smoke and people started running and screaming.”
State television said the blasts appeared to have been the result of remote-controlled bombs, not suicide bombers. All exits from the town were sealed off by police.
Israel, whose border is less than 60km away from Dahab, immediately offered to send emergency teams to help with rescue efforts. Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz ”offered to send army rescue teams and doctors”, his ministry said.
Hundreds of Israeli tourists were rushing home after the blasts on Monday evening, Israeli police said. However, Egypt sealed off its borders with Israel. ”The borders have been closed to prevent any possible suspects from fleeing,” a security source said.
A state of alert was declared at the main hospital in the Israeli border town of Eilat, both to handle any casualties sent for treatment there and to free up doctors for dispatch to the scene.
About 20 000 Israeli holidaymakers were believed to have been in the Sinai at the time of the blasts despite repeated warnings from their government of the risks of attack by Islamic militants.
But public radio quoted Israeli ambassador in Cairo Shalom Cohen as saying he had been informed there were no immediate reports of Israeli casualties.
The Palestinian government run by the Islamist movement Hamas condemned the bomb attacks.
”Our government strongly condemns this criminal act which flouts our religion, shakes Palestinian national security and works against Arab interests,” government spokesperson Razi Hamad said.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement, said the attacks amounted to ”a criminal act which strikes blindly at civilians and is totally against our religion”.
Both the government and the Palestinian Authority president, despite their differences since Hamas defeated Abbas’s Fatah party in January polls, joined forces to send condolences to the Egyptian people and offer their support.
Bombings
The resorts of Egypt’s south Sinai peninsula have been repeatedly hit by Islamic militants in recent years.
Multiple bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh killed about 70 people in July last year, the deadliest to have hit Egypt since a major wave of Islamist terrorist attacks in the mid-1990s.
At least 34 people were killed in several simultaneous attacks in and around the resort of Taba further up the Red Sea coast in October 2004.
Four groups claimed the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, including al-Tawhid wal Jihad, an Islamist movement that said the attacks were revenge for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and out of allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
In April last year, two French tourists and an American were also killed and about 20 people wounded in a bomb attack in the al-Azhar area of the Egyptian capital.
Seven people were wounded in an attack later the same month in Cairo’s Abdel Moneim Riad Square, and two women assailants were killed in a failed attack on a tourist bus. — AFP
