Tourists wounded at attack on Hurghada hotel

About 1,500 British tourists are now estimated to be in Hurghada, which is one of the most popular Red Sea resorts with British tourists after Sharm el Sheikh.

Two Austrians and a Swede were wounded in an attack on an Egyptian Red Sea resort hotel in Hurghada by two suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants on Friday, in the second hotel attack in Egypt in as many days.

IS militants claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on messaging service Telegram.

Egypt’s Ministry of Interior stated that security forces managed to repel the attack, killing one attacker who has been identified as Mohamed Hassan Mohamed, a 21-year-old student and resident of Giza.

The Egyptian Interior Ministry has clarified that each man had a knife and a sound gun (which does not shoot bullets).

On Thursday a bus of Israeli tourists was attacked near Giza’s pyramids but nobody was injured.

Three European tourists from Austria and Sweden suffered knife wounds after the attack.

Friday’s attack came just hours after the local Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on a tourist bus outside a hotel near Egypt’s famous Giza pyramids the previous day.

Olovsson said: ‘I can inform you that I’m in hospital, four stab wounds, but the situation is stable’.

A spokesman for the UK Foreign Office said they were “urgently investigating” the reports from Hurghada.

The agency has also reported that the attackers had arrived by sea and also had a gun and a suicide belt.

Some extremists in Sinai have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and claimed the downing of a Russian airliner that killed 224 people there a year ago.

Revenue from tourism is crucial for the Egyptian economy, but the sector has been hit hard by such attacks.

But ever since bombers attacked the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in 2005 the authorities have gone to great lengths to secure the country’s Red Sea resorts.

The country’s tourism industry was dealt several heavy blows in 2015.

According to eyewitnesses, two of the three gunmen were killed by security forces.

Egyptian officials said no-one was hurt in the attack, near Cairo.

The slain attacker, he said, appeared to want to take a female tourist hostage, dragging her into the hotel’s lobby with his knife held against her neck when he was shot dead by a policeman.