Desert hunt for Egypt bomb suspects
Egyptian security forces are searching rugged desert mountains for the militants suspected of the Sharm el Sheikh bombings.
Investigators say the attackers may have been killed in all three explosions at the Red Sea resort – either accidentally or as suicide bombers.
Police at checkpoints around Sharm el-Sheikh, meanwhile, were circulating photographs of five Pakistanis believed to have come to the area from Cairo earlier this month.
DNA tests were being run on two bodies that could be those of bombers, one believed to be Egyptian, the other a foreigner, a security official said.
Earlier reports said three bombers may have escaped the blasts, which struck Sharm el-Sheikh in quick succession before dawn on Saturday. But investigators said yesterday that attackers may have been killed in all three blasts, either by accident or as suicide bombers.
A body believed to be that of a foreign bomber was found at the Ghazala Gardens Hotel, where an explosives-laden truck smashed into the driveway, running over a cyclist and two security guards before crashing into the lobby and exploding at 1.25am.
The other body suspected to be a bomber was found several miles away in the Old Market, an area where Egyptian workers live. A truck bomb had been heading to the Iberotel Palace hotel when it got stuck in traffic near a police checkpoint.
An unknown number of bombers in the truck abandoned the vehicle and detonated it – at 1.15am – but at least one was apparently caught by the explosion.
The third blast, a bomb hidden in a knapsack, went off about four minutes after the Ghazala explosion in a car park 150 yards from the hotel, ripping through people running to the Ghazala.
Police said they were investigating whether the bomber died.
The identities of the attackers remained unknown Monday. The blasts killed as many as 88 people, including an American woman and at least 16 other foreigners. One Briton was confirmed dead and up to 11 may have died in the blast, it is feared.
The government sacked the heads of security in North and South Sinai provinces - a sign of the failures that may have allowed the assault on one of Egypt’s most closely guarded towns.
Sharm el Sheikh is an engine of the country’s vital tourism industry, a winter home of the president and the venue for many Israeli-Palestinian summits.
Police launched their desert sweep in two areas, Rouessat and Khorum, some 25 miles from Sharm, after getting a tip that suspects may have gone there, security officials said.
The missing Pakistanis were identified as Mohammed Anwar, 30; Rashid Ali, 26; Mohammed Aref, 26; Musaddeq Hussein, 18; and Mohammed Akhtar, 30. The pictures, which gave their passport numbers, were on posters put up in Cairo.
Officials did not say the men were known to be connected to the bombings. They were among nine Pakistanis who checked into a hotel in the Cairo suburb of Maadi on July 7, then disappeared two days later, leaving their bags behind, security officials said.
Photocopies of their passports taken by the hotel indicated the documents were fakes. Four of the men were later found – apparently in Cairo – but the others are believed to have gone to Sharm, the officials said.
Involvement of Pakistanis in Saturday’s attack would imply an international, possibly al-Qaida hand, behind the bombings.
British authorities have been seeking several Pakistanis in connection to this month’s deadly bombings in London, and Washington has raised the possibility that both the London and Sharm attacks were planned by Osama bin Laden’s terror network.
Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that al-Qaida’s command and communication system in his country has been eliminated and that the network could not have orchestrated attacks from Pakistan.
Hospital officials in Sharm said at least 88 people were killed and about 119 wounded, but the Health Ministry put the death toll at 64. Hospitals said the ministry count excluded some sets of body parts.
South Sinai governor Mustafa Afifi said 17 of the dead were non-Egyptians. Those killed included American Kristina Miller and her British boyfriend, Keri Davies, from Fareham, Hants, who were celebrating her 27th birthday when the bombs went off.
Investigators in Sharm were also pursuing a possible connection to bombings in October in two resorts further north, Taba and Ras Shitan, that killed 34 people, including many Israelis.
DNA from the suspected bombers’ remains were being compared to samples from the parents of five suspects still at large from the Taba blasts.
