CAIRO, 27 April 2006 — Two new suicide bombings yesterday morning in north Sinai targeted multinational peacekeeping forces and Egyptian police. The attacks come less than two days after the deadly bombings that claimed the lives of 18 people in the south Sinai resort town of Dahab. The first of yesterday’s assaults took place at about 10.10 a.m. local time near the airport used by the multinational force in the town of Al-Goura.
Riding a motorbike, the terrorist approached a car carrying an Egyptian immigration officer and two multinational peacekeepers responsible for observing the peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel. The explosion failed to injure any of the passengers. The car’s windows bore the brunt of the damage.
The second bombing took place at around 11.30 a.m. local time targeting two Egyptian police cars responding to the earlier attack, but this also failed as the gas cylinder — used as a makeshift bomb — exploded killing the attacker. The assailant’s body is considered the first hard evidence security forces can use to identify the group behind the attacks.News agencies were reporting a third explosion in the town of Belbeis, but Egyptian Interior Ministry officials have denied these claims.
Yesterday’s bombings follow the three nearly simultaneous explosions in Dahab. The dead were identified as “twelve Egyptians and six foreigners, including a Swiss national, a Russian, a Lebanese and a five-year-old German child,” a security official said on condition of anonymity.
According to the security official, suicide bombers caused at least two of the three explosions that rocked the Sinai resort shortly after 7 p.m. on Monday. Earlier reports claimed the death count to be higher, but security and medical officials later revised the number.
Egyptian security forces have so far arrested 30 suspected to be involved in the Dahab bombings, but officials have kept their identities and nationalities a secret.
Witnesses described the scene of Monday’s attacks as total mayhem.
“We saw many dead people,” one cafe worker told the Reuters news agency. “People were screaming. People were being taken to hospital. There’s police everywhere.”
The popular Al Capone restaurant, which lies in the center of Dahab, was completely demolished. “We will be affected by this for a long, long time,” lamented Joseph Nazir, a local safari firm owner
In a televised speech, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that the terrorists “were trying to destroy national unity and shake up national security.” The president explained that terrorist groups mixed religion with politics, and that there is no room in Islam for such extremist actions.
— With input from agencies
