Talks held to free 11 tourists in Egypt

Talks to free 11 European tourists, their guides and a security officer continued early today after the group was kidnapped by four masked men in rugged territory along Egypt’s southwestern borders with Libya and Sudan, according to an Egyptian Tourism Ministry official.

Five Italians, five Germans and one Romanian, along with eight Egyptians -- guides, drivers and a border guard -- went missing over the weekend, though it wasn’t immediately clear when they were taken.

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the kidnapping, which occurred as the tourists were traveling in four utility vehicles across the arid landscape of Gilf al Kebir, known for Sahara vistas and prehistoric cave paintings.

There were, however, conflicting reports about the fate of the tourists. On Monday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit had said the hostages had been freed.

“They have been released, all of them, safe and sound,” Gheit said in New York ahead of the opening meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

He added that the armed kidnappers were “a group of gangsters.”

But the Tourism Ministry official said Gheit’s information was wrong.

Media reports said the bandits had asked for an undisclosed amount of money to release the hostages. Egyptian television reported that one of the captives, the owner of the tourism company that sponsored the trip, called his wife on a satellite phone and said that he was being held for ransom. It was unclear whether any money was paid, how the hostages were freed or whether the bandits forced their captives into Sudan.

North Africa, especially Algeria and the Sudan-Libya region, is known for the kidnapping of Westerners; European governments have paid ransoms in the past to have their citizens freed.

The Egyptian government was keen to contain the crisis so as not to damage tourism, one of this poor country’s key industries. Tourism, which in 2007 accounted for 11 million visitors and $7.6 billion in revenue, has often been a target of Islamic extremists.

Attacks in Sharm el Sheik and other Sinai resorts in the last few years have killed scores of people.

Those incidents followed a 1997 militant raid that killed 63 people, most of them tourists, in Luxor. That attack nearly decimated the nation’s tourism industry, which has since made a comeback.

Crackdowns on extremism and stepped-up security in recent years have increased tourism to ancient Nile Valley sites, including Aswan, east of where the kidnappings occurred. Militants, including Ayman Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s second in command, have been attempting to undermine tourism in an effort to topple the Egyptian government since President Hosni Mubarak came to power.

--

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

--

Noha El-Hennawy of The Times’ Cairo Bureau contributed to this report.