RIYADH: Saudi Arabia and other nations in the Middle East yesterday joined France in condemning a deadly bombing at a famed Cairo bazaar that killed a French teenage tourist and wounded 25 people.
The dead 17-year-old French girl was part of a tour group of 54 teenagers from the Paris region who were on a trip to buy souvenirs in the market before heading home yesterday.
Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia, who had three nationals among those wounded in Sunday’s attack, “strongly condemned” the bombing, the official SPA news agency said quoting an unidentified official.
Saudi Arabia also expressed its hope for stability and security in Egypt, a major tourist destination in the troubled Middle East which has been hit by a string of deadly attacks in recent years.
Egypt said it has arrested three over the bomb blast that ripped through a street lined with cafes and restaurants in Khan El-Khalili, a 14th century Cairo bazaar and one of the Egyptian capital’s main tourist attractions. “Three people there were arrested on the site as suspects after the attack,” a police official said. “Others are being questioned as witnesses.” There has been no claim of responsibility but analysts said the attack could have been the work of an isolated group.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed “deep sorrow” over the attack, while Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the French government “strongly condemns this criminal act whose blind violence shows its absurdity.” The Syrian Foreign Ministry called the bombing a “terrorist attack.” “Syria condemns the terrorist attack... Syria has always rejected these kinds of acts that are contrary to Arab morals,” it said in a statement, in which it also expressed its solidarity with Egypt. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi also denounced the attack and said it served Israeli interests.
“Iran condemns the terrorist bombing in a Cairo neighborhood. It considers it a suspicious act,” Ghashghavi said.
“Such blind acts only serve the purposes of the Zionist regime and is aimed to inflict harm to the historical centers which are respected by all divine religions.” The head of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Al-Tantawi said the bombing “distorted the image of Islam.”
“Those who carried out this criminal act are traitors to their own religion and their nation, and they are distorting the image of Islam which rejects terrorism and bans the killing of innocents,” he said.
Egypt was plagued by a spate of deadly attacks on Westerners by militant groups in the 1990s that dealt a savage blow to the vital tourism sector, which raked in $11 billion in revenue last year.
But Sunday’s violence was the first deadly attack on tourists in Cairo since a bombing in the same neighborhood killed two tourists and wounded 18 in 2005.
A series of bombings killed scores of people in Red Sea resorts on the Sinai Peninsula from 2004 to 2006 that were blamed on militants loyal to Al-Qaeda.
