Everything about Terrorism In Egypt totally explained
Terrorism in Egypt is often done to protest the government's perceived moderate stance in its relations with
Israel, its alliance with the
United States, and the repression of political and religious organizations, such as the
Muslim Brotherhood.
Cooperation with Pakistan
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf met with
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on
22 January 2007. They discussed the situations in Iraq and Israel, bilateral relations, and terrorism in the
Islamic world. President Musharraf plans to visit
Jordan,
Syria, and the
United Arab Emirates.
Luxor massacre
The Luxor Massacre took place on
17 November 1997, at
Deir el-Bahri, an archaeological site located across the
River Nile from
Luxor in
Egypt.
Deir el-Bahri is one of Egypt's top tourist attractions, most notably for the spectacular
Memorial Temple of
18th-dynasty female pharaoh
Hatshepsut, known as "Djeser-Djeseru."
In the mid-morning attack,
Islamic terrorists from
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya ("The Islamic Group") and
Jihad Talaat al-Fath ("Holy War of the Vanguard of the Conquest"), both of which are suspected of having ties to
al-Qaeda massacred 62 tourists at the attraction. The assailants, who numbered six and were armed with automatic firearms and knives, were disguised as members of the security forces. They descended on the
Temple of Hatshepsut at around 08:45 and massacred 62 people, their
modus operandi including
beheadings and
disembowellings. The attackers then hijacked a bus, but armed Egyptian tourist police and military forces arrived soon afterwards and engaged in a gun battle with the six terrorists, who were later killed or committed suicide.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak partly blamed
Great Britain for the attacks after that country had granted
political asylum to Egyptian terrorist leaders.
2004 Sinai bombings
The 2004 Sinai bombings were three bomb attacks targeting
tourist hotels in the
Sinai Peninsula,
Egypt, on
October 7,
2004. The attacks killed 34 people and injured 171. The explosions occurred in the
Hilton Taba in
Taba and campsites used by
Israelis in
Ras al-Shitan. In the Taba attack, a truck drove into the lobby of the Taba Hilton and exploded, killing 31 people and wounding some 159 others. Ten floors of the hotel collapsed following the blast.
Some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south, at campsites at Ras al-Shitan, near
Nuweiba, two more bombings happened. A car parked in front of a restaurant at the Moon Island resort exploded, killing three Israelis and a
Bedouin. Twelve were wounded. Another blast happened moments later, targeting the Baddiyah camp, but didn't harm anyone because the bomber had apparently been scared off from entering the campground by a guard.
Of the dead, many were foreigners: 12 were from
Israel, two from
Italy, one from
Russia, and one was an Israeli-
American. The rest of the dead were believed to be Egyptian.
According to the Egyptian government, the bombers were
Palestinians who had tried to enter Israel to carry out attacks there but were unsuccessful. The mastermind, Iyad Saleh, recruited Egyptians and Bedouins to gain explosives to be used in the attacks.
April 2005 terrorist attacks in Cairo
The April 2005 attacks were three related incidents that took place in the city of
Cairo,
Egypt, on
7 April and
30 April 2005.
The latter two incidents are generally considered to have been minor, in that they caused no loss of life other than those of the perpetrators and appear not to have been planned in advance; in the first attack, however, three bystanders were killed. Neither sophisticated methods nor sophisticated materials were used in the incidents, and the Egyptian authorities have consistently classified the attacks as "primitive".
Two groups claimed responsibility in the early evening hours, local time:
the
Mujahedeen of Egypt and the
Abdullah Azzam Brigades.
In its statement, the latter group said the attacks were in retaliation for the government's clampdown on dissidents in the wake of the
Sinai Peninsula bombings of
October 2004.
In the early hours of Sunday,
1 May, security forces arrested some 225 individuals for questioning, mostly from the dead three's home villages and from the area where they lived in
Shubra. Particularly keenly sought was Muhammad Yassin, the teenage brother of Ehab Yousri Yassin, whom the police described as the only remaining suspect in the bazaar bomb attack and a material witness to the Saturday afternoon shooting.
Over the course of the weekend, it also emerged that all three of the attackers involved in Saturday's attacks were relatives of Ashraf Said, a suspect in the
7 April bombing who was taken in for questioning and died in police custody on Friday,
29 April.
One of the detainees died as a result of torture during interrogation by the authorities.
2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks
The 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks were a series of bomb attacks on
July 23,
2005, targeting the
Egyptian resort city of
Sharm el-Sheikh, located on the southern tip of the
Sinai Peninsula. Eighty-eight people were killed and over 150 were wounded by the blasts, making the attack the deadliest
terrorist action in the country's history. The bombing coincided with Egypt's
Revolution Day, which commemorates
Nasser's
1952 overthrow of
King Farouk.
The attacks took place in the early morning hours, at a time when many
tourists and locals were still out at restaurants, cafés and bars. The first bomb blast, at 01:15 local time (22:15
UTC), was reported in a market in downtown Sharm; shortly after, another was reported to have hit the
Ghazala Gardens hotel, a 176-room four-star establishment in the Naama Bay area, a strip of
beachfront hotels some 6 km from the town centre.
While the official government toll a few days after the blast was put at 64, hospitals reported that 88 people had been killed in the bombings. The majority of dead and wounded casualties were
Egyptians. Among those killed were 11
Britons, two
Germans, one
Czech, six
Italians, one
Israeli, and one
American. Other casualties, dead and wounded, included foreign visitors from
France,
Kuwait, the
Netherlands,
Qatar,
Russia, and
Spain.
A group calling itself the
Abdullah Azzam Brigades (a reference to militant Islamist ideologue
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam) was the first to claim responsibility for the attacks. On a
website the group stated that "holy warriors targeted the Ghazala Gardens hotel and the Old Market in Sharm el-Sheikh" and claimed it has ties to
Al-Qaeda. Additional claims were later made by two other groups calling themselves the "
Tawhid and Jihad Group in Egypt" and "Holy Warriors of Egypt."
2006 Dahab bombings
The Dahab bombings of
24 April 2006 were three bomb attacks on the
Egyptian resort city of
Dahab. The resorts are popular with Western tourists and
Egyptians alike during the holiday season.
At about 19:15
local time on
24 April 2006 — a public holiday in celebration of
Sham Al-Nasseim (Spring festival) — a series of bombs exploded in tourist areas of Dahab, a resort located on the
Gulf of Aqaba coast of the
Sinai Peninsula. One blast occurred in or near the Nelson restaurant, one near the Aladdin café (both being on both sides of the bridge), and one near the Ghazala market. At least 23 people were killed, mostly Egyptians, but including a
German,
Lebanese,
Russian,
Swiss, and a
Hungarian. Around 80 people were wounded, including tourists from
Australia,
Denmark,
England,
France, Germany,
Israel,
South Korea, Lebanon, the
Palestinian Territories, and the
United States.
The governor of
South Sinai reported that the blasts might have been suicide attacks, but later
Habib Adly, the interior minister of Egypt said that the devices were
nail bombs set off by timers, and Egyptian TV also reported that the bombs were detonated remotely. Later investigations revealed the blasts were suicide attacks, set off by
Bedouins, as in earlier attacks in the Sinai.
These explosions followed other bombings elsewhere in the
Sinai Peninsula in previous years: in
Sharm el-Sheikh on
23 July 2005 and in
Taba on
6 October 2004.
Egyptian security officials have stated that the attacks were the work of an
Islamic terror organisation called
Jama'at al-Tawhīd wal-Jihad (Monotheism and Jihad).
Other incidents
The August 2006
overturning of a bus in the Sinai, in which 11
Arab Israelis were killed, the victims believe the crash to have been a premeditated and intentional terror attack. They allege that evidence collected, including the driver's derogatory and threatening remarks attacking them for being Arabs and Israeli, indicate they were targeted by a cell.
The suicide bomber in neighbouring
Eilat's
bakery bombing infiltrated southern Israel from the
Gaza Strip via the Sinai desert.
Further Information
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