Three tourists wounded in attack at Egyptian resort

Security forces repelled the assault after killing one of the gunmen who was wearing a suicide bomb belt.

Egypt is fighting a wave of armed attacks, which began in remote regions of the Sinai, but is increasingly focusing on targets previously considered safe such as the tourist resorts on the Red Sea.

According to foreign ministry sources, the pair were staying at the Bella Vista hotel, when they and a Swedish tourist were attacked by two suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants. The interior ministry said unknown assailants had gathered outside the hotel and targeted police guarding it, who fired back. Officials said officers had tightened checks across the area and shut off roads.

Police and security are ramped up outside a hotel where two attackers opened fire in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Hurghada, Egypt, January 8, 2016.

Mr Tipton said tourism is important to the Egyptian economy and the country goes out of its way to protect holidaymakers.

A spokesman for the UK Foreign Office said they were “urgently investigating” the reports from Hurghada to see if any UK nationals were involved.

“The three wounded tourists are suffering from knife wounds but their situation is under control for now”, Egyptian tourism minister Hicham Zazou said.

The Interior Ministry said that in the Hurghada attack, two men armed with knives and pellet guns attacked the tourists in the restaurant at the front of the seaside, four-star Bella Vista Hotel.

Sean Tipton of Abta, the association of travel agents and tour operators, said Egypt has already suffered a “significant drop-off” in tourism in the wake of terror attacks.

An Islamic State affiliate in Egypt has claimed responsibility for an attack on a hotel near the Giza Pyramids the previous day that authorities said had left no casualties, according to a statement circulated Friday by sympathizers of the militant group.

Security sources said the tourists were Israeli Arabs.

Egypt has been suffering growing anti-government terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year rule.

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.