This week’s bombings in Sinai are linked to the terror attacks in the peninsula’s resorts of Sharm el-Sheik last year and Taba in 2004, Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said on Wednesday.
”The information we have indicates that [the perpetrators] are Sinai Bedouin, and the latest operations are linked to the previous attacks,” el-Adly told state television, referring to the terror attacks in the Sinai resorts of Sharm el-Sheik last July and Taba in October 2004.
Three bombs exploded nearly simultaneously on Monday in the Sinai resort of Dahab, killing 21 people and wounding more than 80, and two suicide bombers attacked international peacekeepers and Egyptian police on Wednesday on the northern edge of the Sinai Peninsula.
El-Adly said he believes Wednesday’s attack, in which only the suicide bombers were hurt, was carried by the same group responsible for the Dahab bombings on Monday, and that they both strikes were linked to those of 2005 and 2004.
”In my evaluation, the two incidents [on Wednesday] are closely linked to the Dahab event, and those who committed [Wednesday’s strike] belong to the same Dahab group,” the minister said.
Asked why the bombers chose national holidays for their attacks, el-Adly said: ”This requires further thought. Do these people have a certain vision or do they think the police will be more relaxed on a holiday — which is not true? On vacations, police officers are on alert,” he added.
The Taba attack in October 2004 took place a day after the holiday that commemorates the start of the 1973 war with Israel, and the Sharm el-Sheik attack last July took place on the day that marks Egypt’s 1952 revolution. — Sapa-AP