'Bomber' killed in shootout
2005-08-01 16:23
Cairo - One of the main suspects in the bloody attacks that rocked Egypt's Sharm el-Sheik resort was killed in a shootout with security forces on Monday, said a police official.
The official said Mohammed Saleh Flayfil, already wanted for his alleged role in last year's bomb attacks at the Taba resorts in the Sinai peninsula, was killed in the shootout in Ataqaa mountains, near Suez.
The official said Flayfil's wife was injured in the shooting.
Flayfil was tried in absentia for the Taba bombings that killed 34 people and was one of the authorities' main suspects out of a list of 15 wanted in relation to the July 23 explosions that rocked Sharm el-Sheik, killing scores of Egyptians and tourists.
The official death toll stood at 64, but hospitals said bodies still uncounted could bring it up to 88.
Flayfil was a brother to Suleiman Flayfil, one of the Taba attackers, who reportedly died in one of the explosions when he detonated his charges prematurely.
Egyptian investigators were focusing on the likelihood that home-grown Islamic militant cells in Sinai, possibly with international links, carried out the Sharm attacks, in which two car bombs and a bomb in a knapsack ripped through a luxury hotel, a neighbourhood full of Egyptians and the entrance to a beach promenade.
- AP