CAIRO, 30 September 2005 — The Egyptian Interior Ministry said yesterday its forces had killed two more suspects in the deadly bomb attacks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh two months ago and arrested a third.
Security forces killed Khalid Musaid Salem, a 33-year-old dentist, and Tilib Murdi Soliman, 23, and captured Yunis Mohammed Al-Alian, 25, after a shootout in the mountainous Jabal Halal region of the Sinai peninsula.
The Interior Ministry described the three as “the most dangerous fugitive suspects” in the July 23 multiple suicide car bombings that rocked Sharm El-Sheikh, killing some 70 people in Egypt’s worst ever such attack.
Security forces intercepted the three after receiving information that they were on their way to meet Mussa Mohammed Salem Badran, another suspect in the bombing who was killed on Wednesday, the ministry said.
But the men opened fire, injuring an officer and three soldiers, it added. Security forces responded, killing the two suspects and arresting the third, according to the interior ministry.
Security sources said the three suicide bombers who carried out the attacks on the popular Red Sea resort on the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula were Bedouin members of an Islamist cell whose chief has been arrested.
The ministry said Salem was the mastermind of the Sharm El-Sheikh bombings and that Soliman played an important role procuring and preparing explosives used in the attack. Alian, it added, was the team’s driver.
