Dahab, Egypt – Egyptian authorities, already struggling with elusive terror cells in the rugged Sinai Peninsula, moved quickly Tuesday, arresting 30 men in the triple bombings that ripped apart a crowded resort town, killing 24 on a tranquil holiday evening.
Radical Muslim groups moved just as rapidly to distance themselves from the Dahab attacks. The leader of Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood condemned them as “aggression on human souls created by God.”
The militant Palestinian Hamas organization called them a “criminal attack which is against all human values.”
Many frightened tourists fled Sinai coastal resorts where two previous bomb attacks – like the Dahab blasts – bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda-linked groups that appear to have a free hand to continue operations in the barren, backward and extremely rugged Sinai Peninsula.
Egyptian authorities – despite massive sweeps by thousands of troops and hundreds of arrests after each previous Sinai attack – appeared increasingly frustrated by the ease with which terrorists continue to hit the country’s vital tourism industry.
It brought in $6.4 billion in 2005 and is the top source of foreign exchange.
“This incident is addressed to the whole of Egypt. There is no reason for it other than an attempt to destroy the economy of Egypt by attacking tourism,” said Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif as he visited blast victims in a Sharm el-Sheik hospital.
President Hosni Mubarak, who oversees an already stagnant economy with unemployment rising in lockstep with the population explosion, called the attack a “sinful terrorist action.”
The attacks came just one day after al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had urged Muslims to support al-Qaeda in what he called a war against Islam.
Egyptian officials have said local people were behind the previous bombings in the Sinai, but outside security experts say Sinai’s extremists seem either al-Qaeda linked or at least aligned with its views.
