New bombs rock Egypt
2006-04-26 13:40
Cairo - Twin suicide attacks targeting security personnel rocked northern Sinai, near the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, two days after triple bombings killed at least 18 people in a resort further south.
According to the interior ministry, the first suicide bomber blew himself up as a vehicle carrying an Egyptian police officer and peacekeepers from Multinational Force and Observers passed by.
The attacks took place near the MFO's base in Gura, which lies 25km west of the Gaza Strip.
It was initially reported that two MFO peacekeepers were wounded in the blast, but the interior ministry said that nobody was hurt. It said: "The windows of the vehicle were shattered."
The second suicide bomber was on a motorbike when he tried to detonate his explosive charge against an Egyptian police vehicle that was rushing to the scene of the first attack.
Triple bombings claim 18 people
The interior ministry added: "The suicide bomber died on the spot, but the explosion did not cause any damage." The second explosion took place east of Gura, near the Gaza Strip border town of Rafah.
The double attack came two days after triple bombings killed at least 18 people, including several foreigners, in the Red Sea resort of Dahab, further south in the peninsula.
Two Canadian members of the force were wounded in August 2005 after a bomb exploded in Al-Gura as their vehicle passed, days after multiple bomb attacks in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh left some 70 people dead.
A group calling itself "Egypt's mujahedeen", or holy warriors, later claimed responsibility for the attack, which officials said at the time was carried out with gas canisters.
The MFO was an independent peacekeeping force not related to the United Nations, created as a result of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty and funded mainly by the two neighbours and the United States.
It had contingents from Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Hungary, Italy, Fiji, New Zealand, Norway, the US and Uruguay.