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Officer, soldier shot dead in Cairo suburb attack

The attack occurred as the country’s tourism minister, Hisham Zazou, prepared to visit the victims of an attack at a hotel on the Red Sea.

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Egyptian security officials say two suspected militants have stabbed and wounded two foreign tourists – a Dane and a German – at a hotel in the Red Sea resort city of Hurghada.

Police shot one perpetrator dead and seriously wounded the other. 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”.

Hurghada is in a state of high alert, with all roads into the resort town closed while security forces search for other possible suspects.

“On Friday night unknown men infiltrated the Hotel Bella Vista in Hurghada through the restaurant overlooking the street and threatened guests with knives”, said a Interior Ministry spokesman.

Police officers Ali Ahmed Fahmy and Ramadan al-Burhami were killed as they made their way to work in Giza’s Shabramant district, the Egyptian Ministry of Interior said in a statement on Saturday.

The attack came one shortly after two consecutive attacks against hotels in the North African nation.

Egypt has witnessed a growing wave of anti-security attacks in revenge for the crackdown on Islamists after the army-led ouster of President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Egyptian officials said no-one was hurt in the attack, near Cairo.

The men were armed with both knives and guns in the attack and Sammie was repeatedly attacked with a knife.

The passengers on the bus were Arab-Israeli citizens, Al-ahram reported, citing a statement by Israeli government.

In a post on Facebook shortly after the attack, Mr Olovsson said he was “lucky” to have deflected his attacker’s knife blows.

The Islamic State group said it had downed the plane by smuggling a bomb on board in the Sharm el-Sheikh airport.

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, and warned that the stabbings could further damage the industry.

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Egypt has been struggling to revive its tourism industry after years of unrest stemming from the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

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