Two suspected militants stabbed and wounded three foreign tourists – two Austrians and a Swede – at a hotel in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Hurghada on Friday, the Interior Ministry said.
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Three gunmen opened fire inside a hotel in the Egyptian resort town of Hurghada Friday, injuring two tourists, Egyptian media reported.
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 assailants arrived by sea to carrying out the assault on the beachside Bella Vista Hotel, but that security forces had repelled the assault, killing the attacker wearing the suicide bomb, sources told Reuters.
“One of the loiterers fired a home-made pellet gun in the direction of the security in front of the hotel causing some damage to the glass facade of the hotel as well as the window of a tourist bus”.
The attacks have become more frequent since the removal of Egypt’s first freely-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, by the military in July 2013.
An Islamic State affiliate claimed an attack Thursday on a hotel in Cairo near the Pyramids that did not wound anyone. None was hurt and Egyptian authorities said the attack was aimed at security forces. The country’s tourism industry is in a parlous state after a series of recent attacks, including the downing of a Russian commercial jet, with many tourists cancelling travel to the region. “The welfare of the tourists visiting Egypt is of the greatest importance to us and will continue to be so”. The apparent bombing of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai a year ago, claimed by IS, led to widespread flight cancellations, dealing a major blow to the industry which is one of the country’s main earners. The ministry identified the slain attacker as 21-year-old Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Mahfouz, a student from Giza.
According to a ministry statement, the attack targeted police guarding the hotel, who returned fire.
On its Facebook page, the hotel posted pictures of the two other victims, spelled in hospital records as Renata Weisslen and Wilhem Weislan, both smiling.
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Egypt remains in a struggle against Islamic terrorists based in the Sinai Peninsula.
