CAIRO, 13 August 2005 — At least one policeman was killed and three others injured in a gunbattle with suspects in last month’s bombing of the Sharm El-Sheikh resorts in the Red Sea, which claimed 88 lives. The gunbattle, which took place in a mountain cave near Ismailiya, left one gunmen dead, security sources told Arab News. “We managed to locate the hide-out of a group of armed Bedouins who are connected to both Sharm El-Sheikh and Taba bombings by the help of the Sinai Bedouins,” said one security source. “However, we were not very successful in catching all the suspects,” he added.
“After receiving information about ... outlaws on a farm near Ismailiya, police forces surrounded the place and exchanged fire with two fugitives,” an Interior Ministry statement said, quoting an unnamed security official. Ismailiya lies between Cairo and the Sinai Peninsula, which has Sharm El-Sheikh at its southern tip.
“After nightfall and when the shooting had stopped, the two individuals fled and the wife of one of them was arrested and weapons were seized on the farm.” The statement said one of the fugitives was arrested in the same area around dawn after he opened fire on security forces, wounding two police who are in a stable condition. The ministry did not say what the men were wanted for, but a police source earlier identified the men as Bedouins linked to the network that carried out the triple bomb attacks.
