Dahab, Egypt – Police arrested 10 people today and divers retrieved body parts from the sea after three bombs ripped apart a Sinai beach resort at the height of Egypt’s tourist season, killing 24 people and injuring more than 80, many of them foreigners.
It was the third terrorist attack on a Sinai resort in less than two years to coincide with a national holiday. It also seemed to open a rift between hard-line al-Qaeda sympathizers and other radical Muslim groups, such as Hamas, which immediately condemned the bombings.
Security police said they had detained for questioning 10 people – three of whom had arrived in Dahab on Sunday and tried to leave the resort 15 minutes after the blasts. The police said they did not yet know if the explosions – timed for maximum destruction in a promenade of bars, restaurants and shops in the early evening – were caused by suicide attackers or bombs on timers.
“The theory is not clear yet,” Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady told The Associated Press.
The blasts were so powerful that police divers worked today to retrieve body parts from the shallow waters of the sea, as workers swept shards of glass from the streets. At one spot near the beach, two black sandals lay in a pool of blood on a wooden footbridge.
Nearby, outside the supermarket where one blast struck, a tiny shoe covered in blood lay on top of a baby stroller. Witnesses said the stroller belonged to foreign twin infants.
One twin was inside the shop with the mother when the blast occurred, and the other outside in the stroller, said Mohammed Emad, 16, who sells spices at the market and whose hand was hurt by flying glass.
The boy said he went with the mother and twins to hospital, where one of the children died and the woman remained severely injured. “I pushed the stroller away out of the doorway” after the blast, he said.
Vacationing Finnish journalist Johanna Sarjas said tourists did not know where to run as the blasts kept coming.
“I heard the first bomb, I started running. When I heard the second one, we were still running,” Sarjas said. “It was chaotic because we didn’t know in which direction to run. You didn’t know where the next bomb would come from.” Interior Minister Habib el-Adly put the death toll at 23, including 20 Egyptians and three foreigners. But Sinai hospital officials said today an Egyptian man had died of his wounds, bringing the toll to 24.
Rady said 18 people had died – 12 Egyptians and six foreigners.
The discrepancy in tolls could not be explained.
Dr. Hazem Ahmed of Sharm el-Sheik Hospital said 85 people were wounded – a figure that Rady confirmed. His hospital had admitted 10 foreigners.
One of the dead was a German child, according to the Egyptian Interior Ministry and the German Foreign Ministry. Police said one Russian and one Swiss were also killed, but el-Adly would not confirm those nationalities.
At least three Israelis also were hurt in the attack, which sent a steady stream of cars back to Israel some 65 miles to the north.
The attacks came a day after al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had urged Muslims to support al-Qaeda in what he called a war against Islam.
But many Arabs have denounced al-Qaeda-linked groups for attacking Arabs and Muslims, and the latest bombings seemed to widen a growing rift between al-Qaeda sympathizers and other radical Muslim groups – such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Both Hamas and the Brotherhood quickly condemned the attacks.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, whose party refused to condemn last week’s bombing in Tel Aviv that killed nine people, told reporters in Gaza: “It is a direct assault against the national security in Egypt.” Egyptian officials have said local people were behind the previous bombings in the Sinai, but outside security experts say Sinai’s extremists seem either linked to al-Qaeda or at least aligned with its views.
The Dahab attack – clearly targeted at both Coptic Christian Egyptians celebrating a religious holiday and Muslim Egyptians on a national holiday, along with Israelis and foreign tourists – seemed consistent with the aims of hard-line al-Qaeda sympathizers, often called Salafists.
In contrast, groups such as Hamas have been careful to say that their attacks are aimed only against Israel, and are not part of a worldwide radical Islamic jihad.
Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, said it was not yet clear who was behind the attack but noted most victims were Muslims and said that negated any idea there was a war between the West and Islam.
“It’s the terrorists, really, against those who are in favor of peace and democracy,” Hadley said on CBS’ “Early Show.” In Israel, Brig. Gen. Elkana Har Nof of the prime minister’s counterterrorism department told state radio that the Sinai resorts were likely to be attacked again because they are a key link in Egypt’s economy.
“The coast combines all the elements that are a target, especially for global jihad,” Nof said.
The attacks were expected to have an immediate impact on tourism, which is Egypt’s No. 1 source of foreign exchange – bringing in $6.1 billion in 2004. The Sinai resorts account for a fourth of Egypt’s hotel beds.
The previous attacks killed nearly 100 people at resorts in the Sinai Peninsula in the past two years – each timed to coincide with an Egyptian holiday.
Bombings in the resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan killed 34 people in October 2004, a day before a holiday marking the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Suicide attackers killed another 64 people at the Sharm el-Sheik resort in July 2005 on another holiday.
This time, hotels were filled with foreigners and Egyptians celebrating the long Coptic Christian Easter weekend that coincided with Shem al-Nessim, an ancient holiday marking the first day of spring. The attacks also came a day before another national holiday.
El-Adly said it wasn’t clear if Monday’s attack could have been carried out by a group as organized as those who detonated the earlier bombs. “The devices used were not of the types which would have caused big destruction,” he said.
Dahab, which means “gold” in Arabic, was for years a popular, low-key haven for young Western and Israeli backpackers drawn by prime scuba diving and cheap hotels. In recent years, more upscale hotels have been built, including a five-star Hilton resort.
The bombs hit at 7:15 p.m., when the streets were jammed with tourists strolling, shopping or looking for a restaurant or bar for evening festivities by the tranquil waters of the Gulf of Aqaba.
The first blast struck a popular seaside restaurant called Al Capone. The second went off outside the supermarket and the Mona Lisa jewelry store. The third detonated at the entrance of a bridge where tourists stroll next to the sea.
Mohammed Gadallah, who works at a hotel coffee shop near the bridge, said he initially thought a power cable had blown up.
Afterward, he ran outside and carried a Russian boy to safety.
“The scene out there was horrific,” the 27-year-old said.
“Blood was everywhere. People’s limbs were blown off. I don’t know who could have done this – they are people who know no religion and have no conscience.” Hani Sadeq, 24, who worked at the Mona Lisa store, said: “We ran toward the scene and we found people, our friends, lying on the ground. some were already dead. Some were alive, with arms broken.
We took them to the hospital.” Looking up at a shrapnel-scarred hotel, he added, “Dahab is dead now.”
