A Tour of Egypt 53responsibility was the Battalion of the Martyr Abdullah
Azzam, which also has other aliases such as Al-Qaeda in
the Levant and Egypt, and Al-Qaida in Syria and Egypt. The
group was founded to “oppose Middle Eastern governments
that the group deems to be aligned with the West (such as
the Mubarak government in Egypt), the Zionist movement,
and non- Muslim forces in the Middle East” according to the
above quoted source.
On 7 April 2005, a suicide bomber from a previously
unknown group (the Islamic Glory Brigades in the Land of the
Nile) killed himself, an American and two French nationals in
an attack on Cairo’s Khan el-Khalili bazaar. The police believe
they have captured the suspects, but continue investigations
in the villages of Ammar and Ezbet al-Gabalawi, where the
attackers originated.
On 30 April 2005, two women and one man (brother
to one of the women and fiancée to the other) attacked
almost simultaneously. The two women opened fire on a
tourist bus wounding no one before they turned the guns
on themselves which resulted in their deaths. The man, with
a bomb strapped to his body, killed himself and wounded
seven as he jumped from the 6 October Bridge onto the
Midan Abdel-Moneim Riyadh below, near the National
Museum. Multiple groups have since claimed the attacks;
however, it is unclear if any of these individuals had links to
any organisation.
Also in 2005, in July, unknown terrorists plotted and
carried out three simul-taneous attacks on the tourist
infrastructure in the Sinai towns of Sharm el-Sheikh and
Taba. A total of 88 people died and approximately 200
were wounded, among them six tourists. Police state the
responsible parties were a Sinai-based group with no ties
to any international group who responded to the jailing
of their leader. Others suggest the responsible party was
Battalion of the Martyr Abdullah Azzam. The jury remains
out on this issue.
On 24 April 2006, a third co-ordinated attack on the
Sinai Peninsula resort towns occurred at Dahab. killing 23
people and injuring 62.