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Blasts Rock Egyptian Resort, Scores Killed
CAIRO,
April 24, 2006 (IslamOnlin.net & News Agencies) – Three blasts rocked a market and a busy restaurant area in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Dahab on Monday, April
24,
killing at least ten people, including
four foreigners and wounding some 70 others, the interior ministry
said.
"Around
7 pm (1600 GMT), we heard three explosions close to the seafront
alongside a supermarket in the centre of Dahab," French tourist
Frederic Mingeon told Agence France-Presse (AFP) from the town.
"There
was a plume of smoke and people started running and screaming."
Citing
rescue officials, Reuters said 30 people were killed in the explosions.
The Associated Press, meanwhile, quoted the doctor in charge of the
Sinai peninsula rescue squad as saying that at least 18 people died in
the blasts.
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.
There
was no immediate word on the nationality of the victims, in the third
such attack in the Sinai in 18 months.
For
years, Dahab was popular, low-key haven for young Western backpackers
— including Israelis — drawn by prime scuba diving sites and cheap
hotels, which mainly consisted of huts set up along the beach.
In
recent years, a number of more upscale hotels have been built,
including a five-star Hilton resort.
Many
Egyptians were also vacationing in the Sinai peninsula as the bombings
struck on Sham al-Nessim, a public holiday which traditionally marks
the beginning of spring.
Dahab
is located on the Gulf of Aqaba on the eastern side of the Sinai
Peninsula and is about 65 miles south of Taba, near the border at the
southern tip of Israel.
Israeli
Help
Israel,
whose border is less than 100 miles (60 kilometers) away from Dahab,
immediately offered to send emergency teams to help with rescue
efforts.
Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz "offered to send army rescue teams and
doctors", his ministry said.
Hundreds
of Israeli tourists were rushing home after the blasts, Israeli police
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.
Some
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 attacks.
But
Israeli public radio quoted Israeli Ambassador in Cairo Shalom Cohen
as saying he had been informed there were no immediate reports of
Israeli casualties.
Repeated
Target
The
resorts of Egypt's south Sinai peninsula have been repeatedly hit by
terrorist attacks in recent years.
Multiple
bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh killed some 70
people in July 2005, the deadliest to have hit Egypt since a major
wave of terrorist attacks in the mid-1990s.
Four
groups claimed the Sharm, including Al-Tawhid wal Jihad, which said
the attacks were reprisal for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
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.
In
April last year, two French tourists and an American were also killed
and some 20 people wounded in a bomb attack in the Al-Azhar area of
the capital Cairo.
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.
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