CAIRO, 24 August 2005 — Egypt said yesterday that most of the suspects behind a string of bomb attacks in the Sinai Peninsula have been arrested after a series of raids in the area. “The intensive efforts exerted recently have led to the capture of most suspects and yielded details on the terrorist attacks in the Sinai,” an interior ministry statement said.
Security sources had announced Monday the launch of a sweep in the peninsula involving some 3,000 men to track those behind the attacks, including a triple bombing in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh last month that killed about 70 people.
“At dawn, police launched an operation in Jabal Halal in the northern Sinai, aimed at capturing members of a terrorist group that played a major part in planning and carrying out the terrorist attacks in Sinai,” the ministry said.
However, it did not elaborate on the number of arrests or specify which attacks the suspects were accused of involvement in. Two Canadian women peacekeepers were lightly wounded on Aug. 15 in an area of the peninsula not far from the border with the Gaza Strip when a home-made bomb struck their vehicle.
On July 23, multiple suicide car bombings rocked tourist-packed Sharm El-Sheikh, killing some 70 people in Egypt’s worst ever such attack. On Oct. 7, last year, similar simultaneous bombings killed at least 34 people, including several Israeli tourists in resorts further north on the Red Sea coast including the border town of Taba.
Two Egyptians accused of taking part in the October bombings are currently on trial, while a third was killed earlier this month near the Suez Canal.
Security forces have carried out several raids in the mountainous Sinai region, rounding up thousands of Bedouin, many of whom have since complained of torture during their detention.
Security sources yesterday named one of those arrested as Khaled Musaid, whose family gave DNA samples in July to see if he had died in the Sharm bombings. He was arrested in El-Arish on Aug. 12, they said. Some of the members of the group were militant Islamists, security sources say.
