Assailants Hit 2 Cairo Attractions

Armed militants turned their wrath against foreign tourists Saturday as a pair of attacks rocked two of the Egyptian capital’s most famous and popular attractions. All three of the alleged assailants were killed and nine people were wounded in the afternoon violence near the Egyptian Museum and the Citadel.

The attacks, which included a roadside shooting rampage by two women wearing veils, fed a growing fear that tourists are being systematically targeted by militants in a land that has long struggled to reconcile its crucial tourism industry with its troubled internal politics. The twin strikes also undercut the government’s claim that a bombing that killed four people last month in a crowded tourist bazaar was an anomaly.

The rise in violence is playing out against a backdrop of intense political friction: With elections scheduled for the fall, a growing antigovernment movement has become more organized and visible.

The attacks stirred memories of the bloody campaign that raged in Egypt throughout the 1990s, when Islamist militants targeted tourists in the hopes of drying up the tourism industry and damaging President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

“They want to hurt the state and cause confusion. Attacking tourists is the easiest way to do so,” said Mamdouh Ismail, a lawyer and former member of Islamic Jihad. “You hit two birds with one stone. You strike at Westerners and harm the government’s income from tourism.”

In the first of Saturday’s attacks, a bomb stuffed with nails rattled the heart of downtown Cairo, exploding on the banks of the Nile between the imposing pink monolith of the Egyptian Museum and a five-star Hilton hotel popular with vacationers and business travelers.

The blast killed one man, who may have been the bomber. Seven people were wounded, including three Egyptians, two Israelis, one Swiss and one Italian, the Egyptian health minister told state television.

Security forces quickly ringed the blast site, carpeting the ground with newspaper to soak up the blood. What appeared to be a man’s corpse lay sprawled on the ground. His head, neck and shoulders had been blown off.

“The explosion rocked the car,” said Kamel Kamel, a 26-year-old taxi driver who was passing by when the bomb went off. “There was blood everywhere. People were just standing, shocked. We didn’t know if there was going to be another one. We just froze.”

Two hours later, the violence spread to the ancient streets at the foot of the Citadel on the city’s southern edge, where the two women wearing niqab, or face veils, opened fire on a tour bus. Then they turned the guns on themselves and committed suicide, according to a statement from the Interior Minister.

In the crowd that milled at the scene shortly after the shooting, bystanders said that a gunfight had erupted between security agents and the gunwomen. Two Egyptians were wounded in the attack, the health minister said.

Security forces circled the patch of street, pushing away onlookers. The bus came under fire near the gates of the City of the Dead, a vast cemetery known for its Islamic relics and for the homeless families who’ve taken up residence in its tombs.

Witnesses at the scene reported seeing a pistol, black clothing and puddles of blood on the road near the cemetery gate. One of the gunwomen died immediately, and the other died at the hospital, the interior ministry said.

The attacks came less than a month after an Egyptian man set off a nail-packed bomb in the teeming, tightly packed bazaars in Cairo’s old city, killing himself, two French citizens and an American. Investigations have been ongoing; the 40-year-old cousin of the bomber died in custody from an undisclosed cause.

Saturday’s violence was apparently tied to the earlier strike in the bazaar. The bomb outside the Egyptian Museum -- a vast trove of Egyptian relics and antiquities -- was set off by a man who was being hunted by police for an alleged role in the bazaar bombing, the interior minister said. The ministry identified the dead suspect as Ihab Yousri Yassin, and said his identity card turned up near his body.

Police had been chasing him when he threw himself off a ramp leading onto a bridge stretching over the Nile, blowing himself up as he fell, the Interior Ministry said. The people injured below were bystanders, the ministry said.

The two women who opened fire on the tour bus also had links to the bazaar bomber, Egyptian officials said. Government sources identified the pair as the bomber’s sister and his fiancee.

A group calling itself the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for the Saturday attacks on an Islamist website, the Associated Press reported. The claim could not be verified. The posting said the attacks were meant as revenge for the regime’s harsh crackdown on the residents of the Sinai.

Security forces swept the desert peninsula after coordinated suicide bombings on Red Sea resorts frequented by Israeli tourists killed 34 people last fall. It was the first major attack on tourists in Egypt since 1997. That year, gunmen slaughtered more than 60 tourists and Egyptians in attacks outside the Egyptian Museum and near an ancient temple in Luxor.

Human rights groups have reported that the government responded to last year’s Sinai attacks with a rash of arbitrary arrests and torture.

“The crimes you committed against the people of Sinai ... will not pass lightly,” Saturday’s Web posting said, addressing Mubarak. “The time for your removal has come.”

The violence has surged at a time when Egyptian politics have taken on an edgier, more tumultuous tone. Egypt is preparing nervously for what has been billed as the country’s first open presidential election between multiple candidates, which is supposed to be held in September.

As the elections near, opposition to Mubarak’s 24-year-old regime has grown noisier and more insistent with a set of escalating street demonstrations. Analysts say Egyptians are chafing under widespread economic woes and the strict squelching of civil liberties. Egypt has been ruled by emergency law since Mubarak came to power in 1981.

Mubarak has excused Egypt’s resistance to democracy by warning that anti-Western Islamists would take over in an open election. The president has also justified the permanent martial law by pointing to the risk of terrorism.

Mubarak’s justifications are countered by those who argue that it’s a lack of jobs, opportunities and freedom that fuels violence.

“There are no real opposition parties, no independent syndicates, no free press, no open conferences, nothing,” Ismail said. “The youth don’t find any other channels, except going to blow themselves up to state their views. Things wouldn’t have gone so bad if there was freedom.”

With tension roiling Egyptian politics, the violence comes as an unwelcome disruption to both the regime and its opposition. Mubarak needs the confidence of foreigners to bolster the economy -- and the opposition needs to strip the regime of excuses for dragging its feet on reform.

Egypt’s outlawed, popular Muslim Brotherhood movement denounced Saturday’s attacks as “a direct attempt to destabilize the country, which foremost benefits the American-Zionist project.”

In a press release, Brotherhood official Mohammed Habib warned that the regime could use the attacks as an excuse to slow down political reform.

Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, head of Al Azhar, Cairo’s ancient center for Sunni Islamic studies, also condemned the attacks. “Islam rejects any kind of terrorist act or sabotage,” he said in a statement.

Special correspondent Hossam Hamalawy contributed to this report.