Sinai bombs: Leader killed
2006-05-09 22:09
Cairo - Egyptian police have killed the leader of a group they suspect to be behind the Sinai bombings.
Egyptian police said Nasr Khamis el-Milahi had opened fire on officers in the town of El Arish in northern Sinai on Tuesday. The officers returned fire and killed him.
Egyptian police arrested his aide, Mohammed Abdullah Alyan, who was wounded in the gun battle.
The country's authorities had named Milahi as leader of the Tawhid wal Jihad, a group they blame for a series of attacks in the Sinai peninsula since October 2004.
The Sinai attacks have killed at least 117 people to date. The Red Sea resort of Taba and beach camps further south were bombed in October 2004 and Sharm el-Sheikh was hit in July 2005.
In the most recent attack, 19 people were killed in a bomb blast in the tourist resort of Dahab last month.
The men identified as members of the group by the Egyptian authorities come mainly from El Arish, a poor Egyptian town on the Mediterranean coast.
Last week, Egyptian police killed six men wanted over the bombings in gun battles in northern Sinai.