European tourists hurt in Egypt attack, assailant killed

Egypt has been battling an insurgency by Islamic militants led by the local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group.

They said security forces had killed the attacker wearing the suicide bomb, and that one of the injured was from Denmark and the other from Germany. The ministry also identified the slain assailant as 21-year-old student Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Mahfouz, Al Jazeera reported. Although no terrorist group has formally claimed responsibility for the attack, according to eyewitnesses the terrorists were carrying the black Islamic State flag bearing white writing reproducing the Islamic creed, or Shahada, and shouting “Allah hu Akbbar”.

But the Interior Ministry’s statement says three tourists – two Austrians and one Swede – were wounded.

One of the assailants was killed and the other seriously wounded, a police official said earlier, adding that security forces had “foiled” the attack.

The tourists-two from Austria and one from Sweden-were “slightly wounded”, police said.

The attack took place at Bella Vista Hotel on today, Ahram Online reported.

The identity of the assailants was not immediately clear but Egypt has been roiled by mainly jihadist violence since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. A group of Islamists from the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood association that is banned in Egypt hurled lit flares and fired from shotguns on Friday at a bus with Israeli tourists at the entrance to the Three Pyramids Hotel.

Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi said in a post on Facebook that 45 tourists from Umm el-Fahm, Kafr Kassem, and Jaffa were on the bus when it was attacked, and that “everyone is alive and well with no injuries”.

The same Islamic State affiliate that is based in the Sinai peninsula, and responsible for the recent attacks on neighboring resorts, is the said group to have downed a Russian plane back in October of 2015, which took the lives of 224 individuals.

Egyptian officials hope that the tourism sector will pick up next year with double digit growth in the number of tourists and revenues. None was hurt and Egyptian authorities said the attack was aimed at security forces.