Egypt attacks hit tourism
2005-05-01 10:58
Cairo - Egypt's vital tourist industry was dealt another blow after three young Islamist militants were killed in attacks in the heart of Cairo that left a number of foreign visitors injured.
One man blew himself up as he jumped off a bridge near the world famous Egyptian Museum on Saturday, and less than an hour later two women - the man's sister and his fiancee - died in an abortive attack on a tourist bus.
The attacks by what appears to be a new generation of young extremists without links to traditional Islamist groups followed a bombing in Cairo last month that the authorities had described as an "isolated incident".
Saturday's attacks were claimed in internet statements by a group calling itself the Brigades of the Martyr Abdullah Azzam and another one called the Egyptian Mujahedeen Group.
In the first attack, a suspect wanted for the April 7 bombing threw himself from a bridge and detonated a bomb as he was being pursued by police, the interior ministry said. An Israeli couple, an Italian woman and a Swedish man were wounded.
In the second attack, two women identified as the bomber's sister Nagat Yusri Yassin, 22, and fiancee Iman Ibrahim Khamis, 19, died after an abortive shooting attack on a tourist bus near the Citadel, another popular attraction.
One of the two women - who were both veiled and wearing full-length black hijabs - was shot dead by police, the other killed herself to avoid capture, police said.
Schoolteacher
The interior ministry identified the man who threw himself from the October 6 bridge as Ihab Yusri Yassin, saying they also found identity papers belonging to Hassan Raafat Ahmed Bashandi on his body.
Authorities say Bashandi carried out the April bombing in the Cairo's bustling Khan al-Khalili bazaar district in which he, two French citizens and a US national died. A previously unknown group calling itself the Islamic Brigades of Pride in Egypt said it carried out the blast.
The ministry said two other suspects allegedly involved in the April bombing had been captured, naming the men as Asharaf Saeed Youssif and Gamal Ahmed Abdul Aal who it said had "embraced the idea of jihad (holy war)".
It said Abdul Aal, a school teacher, had left a note for his family saying he had gone to wage jihad and that investigations had revealed that the two were planning more attacks.
The site of the bombing was a crowded bus terminal in General Abdul Munem Riyadh Square between the museum and the Ramses Hilton on the east bank of the Nile.
Saturday's attacks were claimed by the Brigades of the Martyr Abdullah Azzam which boasted that it "shook the ramparts of the Pharaoh of Egypt (President Hosni Mubarak)".
Another claim by the so-called Egyptian Mujahedeen Group, appeared on the same site a little later. It said that the shooting was not carried out by two women but "by the brother martyr Mohammed Aderrahman".
- AFP