23 Dead in Egypt Bombings

One thing the MSM (main stream media) has neglected to report (or as in this story, buried it pretty deeply in the article) is that the majority of those hurt and killed are Christians.

DAHAB, Egypt - Three nearly simultaneous bombings hit this Egyptian beach resort popular with foreigners Monday, killing at least 23 people on streets filled with vacationers and Egyptians enjoying a long weekend marking a national holiday.
Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said those killed included 20 Egyptians and three foreigners. Sixty-two people were wounded, many of them Westerners.
The explosions came a day after Usama bin Laden issued a call to arms to Muslims to support Al Qaeda in fighting what he calls a war against Islam.
The bombings - the third terror strike on a Sinai resort in less than two years - hit Dahab 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 bomb exploded outside a seaside restaurant called Al Capone, one of the area's most popular spots. The second bomb went off outside a supermarket and the Mona Lisa jewelry store. The third detonated at the entrance of a bridge where tourists take strolls next to the sea.
Mohammed Gadallah, who works at a hotel coffee shop near the bridge bomb, said he initially thought a power cable had blown up. After the explosion, 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 conscious."
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."
Hotels and guesthouses were filled with foreigners and with Egyptians celebrating the long Coptic Christian Easter weekend that coincided this year with Shem al-Nessim, the ancient holiday marking the first day of spring. The attacks also came a day before Sinai Liberation Day, a national holiday marking the return of the peninsula to Egypt from Israel as a result of the 1979 peace treaty.
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, which mainly consisted of huts set up along the beach. In recent years, a number of more upscale hotels have been built, including a five-star Hilton resort.
At least three Israelis were hurt in the attack, which sent a steady stream of cars back to Israel some 65 miles to the north. Israeli authorities said 1,800 of their citizens were in the Sinai at the time of the blasts. However, there were far fewer Israelis vacationing in Sinai than during last week's Passover holiday.
Israel's ambassador in Cairo, Shalom Cohen, said the Israeli government had warned repeatedly against visiting the Sinai. "Unfortunately, the warnings came true," he told Israel's Channel 10 TV.
President Hosni Mubarak, whose economy is heavily dependent on tourism, called the blasts a "sinful terrorist action."
President Bush also condemned the attacks.
"Today we saw again that the terrorists are willing to try to define the world the way they want to see it," Bush said in Las Vegas.
The Interior Ministry said the wounded included 42 Egyptians and 17 foreigners - including three Americans - while police put the number of wounded at more than 150. The discrepancy could not be immediately be explained. An interior ministry official who refused to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media said Italians, French, Danes, Britons, Germans and at least one Australian also were among the injured.
The official said a German child was among the dead. Police said one Russian and one Swiss were also killed; el-Adly would not confirm those nationalities.
Terrorist attacks have killed nearly 100 people at several tourist resorts in the Sinai Peninsula in the past two years - each timed to coincide with a major holiday in Egypt.
Bombings in the resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan, near the Israeli border, killed 34 people in October 2004, a day before a holiday marking the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Suicide attackers killed 64 people - mainly tourists - in an attack on the resort of Sharm el-Sheik last July. It happened on the day Egyptians commemorate the 1952 revolution overthrowing the king.
The Egyptian government has said the militants who carried out the bombings were locals without international connections, but other security agencies have said they suspect Al Qaeda.
El-Adly said it wasn't immediately clear if Monday's attack could have been carried out by a group as organized as those who detonated the earlier bombs in the other resort towns.
"The devices used were not of the types which would have caused big destruction," he said. "It is clear from examination and the marks left as a result of the explosion, that they were mild marks which reflect the type of the explosive devices."
In Washington, a U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in compliance with office policy, said it was unclear who was behind Monday's attack.
Officials there have not ruled out Al Qaeda involvement, but have no evidence showing that is the case, the official said. Nor do they have any evidence that bin Laden's tape was linked to the attack.
Bruce Hoffman, a RAND terrorism expert, agreed in a telephone interview from Washington.
"It's an extraordinarily short turnaround - it's impossible to say at this point."
Hoffman said Egypt was one of the most proficient Middle Eastern countries in dealing with terrorist groups, so this attack showed "how adept and innovative these groups are.
"It may be that the Sinai Peninsula is (Egypt's) Achilles Heel. They've gone up and down the coast and hit the main tourist resorts," Hoffman said.
In his taped warning Sunday, bin Laden accused the United States and Europe of supporting a "Zionist" war on Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the Hamas-run Palestinian Cabinet, condemned Monday's bombings as a "criminal attack which is against all human values. We denounce the attack, which harmed the Egyptian national security."
By contrast, Hamas had refused to condemn last week's bombing that killed nine people in an Israeli fast-food restaurant.
After Monday's attack, Egyptian television footage showed body parts scattered on the streets, bloodstained pavement and destroyed shops littered with broken glass.
Jamie Gibbs, a Briton, told Sky News that the streets of Dahab were chaotic after the bombings so he and a friend walked back to their rooms along the beach.
"We met a couple of Egyptians we know, and one was crying. He had lost one of his friends - he died," Gibbs said. "And everyone is very upset because of their livelihoods. If the tourists stop coming they're going to be poorer than they already are."