CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday vowed to defeat terror as investigators probed whether a fugitive suspected in previous Sinai resort bombings may have carried out this week s blasts in Dahab.
We are chased by a blind terror and no one is immune from its evils, Mubarak said in an annual nationally televised speech marking Labor Day.
But he said, The security and stability of the country are a red line that I won t allow anyone to cross.
Apparently referring to recent violence between Egypt s Muslim majority and Christian minority, Mubarak also lambasted the forces of extremism and fanaticism, saying they were trying to tear at the united fabric of the Egyptian society.
Mubarak vowed to use the strong and decisive arm of the law against terrorism, saying, We will besiege it, uproot it and dry up its resources.
His comments came a day after two suicide bombers attacked international peacekeepers and police in the Sinai Peninsula, and three days after triple bombings killed at least 24 people in Dahab.
The Dahab attacks came a day before Sinai Liberation Day, a public holiday which celebrates Israel s 1982 withdrawal from the peninsula, in what many analysts saw as evidence that the perpetrators were from a local group with an Egyptian agenda. The Sharm El-Sheikh and October 2004 attacks also were timed to coincide with key dates in Egyptian history. The spate of bombings mark the first major threat to state security since Egypt crushed an Islamist insurgency in the 1990s. The most common hypothesis put forward by security experts and commentators is that of a new home-grown Islamist cell, that could be an Al-Qaeda franchise without necessarily receiving direct support from Osama bin Laden s network. Preliminary findings from the investigation revealed that the bombs used in the Dahab attacks were rudimentary and made with materials locally available.
On Thursday, investigators working on the Dahab case said they were looking into the possibility that a fugitive named Nasr Khamees who was suspected of being involved in deadly attacks on the resorts of Sharm El-Sheikh last July and Taba in October 2004, could have carried out the Dahab bombings.
Investigators are running DNA tests on three bodies recovered from the Dahab scene to determine whether they were suicide bombers, or whether the blasts were caused by rigged explosives, security officials said.
Investigators and officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Authorities have said the Dahab attacks were an attempt to hurt the country s economy by striking its vital tourism industry.
Eager to avoid hurting tourism further by linking Al-Qaeda to the bombings, Egyptian officials have blamed Bedouin tribesmen, but some outside intelligence officials say groups affiliated with Osama bin Laden s network are the more likely suspects.
On Wednesday, Interior Minister Habib El-Adly said all the blasts this week were linked to the Sharm El-Sheikh and Taba attacks.
The information we have indicates that (the perpetrators) are Sinai Bedouin, and the latest operations are linked to the previous attacks, El-Adly told state television. Agencies
