4 Killed - 17 Wounded in Bomb Attack
Near Famous Mosque in Cairo, Egypt
Cairo - Sunday, February 22
The attack was staged near the historic Khan El-Khalili market in eastern Cairo, where tourists shop for . . .
. . . trinkets and sit at outdoor coffee shops.
Egyptian Health Minister Hatem El-Gabali said a French woman was among those killed. He also said 17 people were wounded, including 10 French tourists, one German and three from Saudi Arabia. Other sources said six people had been seriously wounded. A medic on the scene said all the injured were taken to the nearby Hussein hospital and the Frenchwoman died of her wounds in the intensive care unit.
Yesterday’s blast outside a cafe sent a panicked rush of worshippers from the nearby historic Hussein Mosque. The bomb was thrown from a motorcycle and bomb disposal experts defused a second device, which was also thrown, the sources added.
“I was praying and there was a big boom and people started panicking and rushing out of the mosque, then police came and sealed the main door, evacuating us out of the back,” said Mohammed Abdel Azim, 56, who was inside the historic mosque. Outside, blood stained the marble paving stones.
A frantic woman screamed at police sealing off the area to let her look for her daughter.
The Khan El-Khalili was last attacked in April 2005, when a suicide bomber killed two French citizens and an American.
The outdoor cafes and restaurants lining the square were packed with crowds, including a large group of Irish tourists at Mohammed Said’s Al-Sinousi Cafe. “There was a big loud boom. Everybody ducked,” the cafe owner said. “I ran out to figure out what’s happening.” The blast sent panicked crowds running in all directions, he said.
A police colonel at the scene said the small bomb outside the cafe kicked up stone and marble fragments, which wounded passersby. All the officials describing the blasts spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
It was not clear who was behind the attack or if the tourists had been deliberately targeted, although militants have hit the country’s tourist industry in recent decades through bomb and shooting attacks.
Tourism in Egypt reached record levels last year after a lull in deadly attacks over the last few years. But in September last year, masked gunmen seized 19 hostages, including 11 tourists, on a safari in a remote desert area near the Sudanese and Libyan border. All were released unharmed.
Egypt fought a long war with militants in the 1990s, which culminated in a massacre of more than 50 tourists in Luxor in 1997.
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