Egypt tries to ID bombers
2005-07-26 13:37
Sharm El-Sheikh - Egyptian investigators on Tuesday were trying to identify the bombers who died in the attacks on Sharm el-Sheikh, as a third militant group claimed responsibility for the triple bombings.
Security sources said police were hunting six Pakistanis suspects while other elements of the investigation pointed to links with a Bedouin cell accused over another wave of bombings in nearby resorts in October.
Three days after the bombs ripped through the tourist-packed Red Sea resort, a question mark also hung over the death toll, with the health and tourism ministries saying 64 people had perished while hospital officials said 88 died.
A previously unknown movement calling itself the Unity and Jihad Group in Egypt said it carried out the attack "in revenge for our brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan... and in response to the war against terror".
Still unidentified bodies
"It was also out of loyalty to the leaders of the mujahedeen within the al-Qaeda network, Sheikh Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri, may God preserve them," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified.
The group said it also carried out anti-Israeli bombings in October that killed 34 people in three resorts further up the Sinai coast.
It named five "martyrs" it said died in the Sharm el-Sheikh attacks. The names differed from those given by another group that claimed responsibility for the bombings on Monday, Mujahedeen Egypt.
The first group to claim responsibility for the attacks, the deadliest in Egypt, was a movement calling itself the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Levant and Egypt.
Although the Egyptian government has not issued official statements on the probe, Interior Minister Habib al-Adly said on the day of the bombings that they may be linked to the October 7 Sinai attacks.
DNA tests were being carried out on the families of Egyptian men suspected of involvement in the October attacks and compared to the remains of the suspected Sharm bombers.
In a twist that heightened fears of a new wave of co-ordinated global al-Qaeda-linked terror attacks, Egyptian security sources said six Pakistanis who entered the country earlier this month were being sought over the Sharm bombings.
The passports of five of them were found in a Sharm el-Sheikh hotel and photocopies in a Cairo suburb hotel. Their pictures were among those of dozens of suspects posted in police stations in the Sharm el-Sheikh area.
Police also said two Pakistanis were among a group of men who exchanged fire with Egyptian forces during a manhunt in the Sinai hinterland on Monday.
Pakistan has come under increased international pressure to crack down on Islamic militants after it emerged some of the bombers in the July 7 attacks in London, British Muslims of Pakistani descent, had recently visited the country.
More than 30 bodies remained to be identified following Egypt's latest bombings.