Egypt tourist bus struck by roadside bomb near pyramids, 17 wounded

A tourist bus struck a roadside bomb on Sunday near the Giza pyramids, wounding at least 17 people, including tourists, Egyptian officials said.

The officials said the bus was traveling on a road close to the under-construction Grand Egyptian Museum, adjacent to the Giza pyramids.

The bus was carrying at least 25 people, most of them from South Africa, officials added.

The attack came as Egypt’s vital tourism industry is showing signs of recovery after years in the doldrums resulting from ongoing political turmoil and violence that followed a 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Hosni Mubarak.

The officials said security forces cordoned off the site of the explosion and the wounded were taken to a nearby hospital.

The explosion damaged a windshield of another car, they said. Video circulated online shows shattered windows of the bus.

Atif Moftah, general supervisor of the Grand Egyptian Museum, said the explosion did not cause any damage to the museum, in a statement issued by the antiquities ministry.

No group immediately took responsibility for the attack. It was the second to target foreign tourists near the famed pyramids in less than six months. In December, a bus carrying 15 Vietnamese tourists was hit by a roadside bomb, killing at least three.

Egypt has battled Islamic militants for years in the Sinai Peninsula in an insurgency that has occasionally spilled over to the mainland, hitting minority Christians or tourists. The insurgency gained strength after the 2013 military overthrow of the country’s first freely elected president, Islamist Mohamed Morsi, whose brief rule sparked mass protests.