CAIRO: Three Egyptians were killed Sunday in clashes that broke out when police raided northern Sinai to hunt down the group responsible for the deadly bombings in Dahab, security sources said. State-owned newspapers also reported that one of the three suicide bombers who blew themselves up in the Red Sea resort of Dahab on April 24 had been identified and his brother arrested. The armed clashes erupted at dawn in the Jabal Al-Maghara region in northern Sinai as police encircled an area where they believed suspects were holed up, the interior ministry said in a statement. Three suspects were killed during the day-long exchanges, security sources said, adding that one of the dead men was believed to be Nasr Khamis Al-Milahi, on the wanted list since previous deadly bombings in Sinai in October 2004 and July 2005. Other suspects were detained in the raid, security sources added. The Jabal Maghara area is close to Sheikh Zuayed, which is one of the main towns in northern Sinai and the home of at least one of the suicide bombers, the sources said. Newspapers said one of the bombers, Atallah Al-Swerki, concealed the explosives under a load of fruit on a pick-up van which he used to reach the southern Sinai diving resort last Monday. Ibrahim, the brother of terrorist Atallah Al-Swerki, was arrested by the security services in northern Sinai, the state-owned Al-Gomhuriya daily said. He helped his brother take the explosives towards Dahab, before heading back to the Sheikh Zuayed area, the newspaper added, quoting security sources. The driver of the vehicle, named by newspapers as Mohammed Shehta, was also arrested and questioned as part of the investigation, the official MENA news agency reported. Investigators suspect all three bombers came from the same area but are still in the process of confirming the identities of two of them. Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly had said that the same north Sinai group was responsible for the Dahab bombings and two other failed suicide attacks on security personnel further north on Wednesday. According to Attorney General Maher Abdel Wahed, the final toll for the bombings in Dahab stands at 18 killed and 90 wounded. Twelve Egyptians were killed as well as two Russians, a German child, a Swiss national, a Yemeni and a Hungarian. The attacks, the third such bombings on the same tourist-packed coastline in 18 months, also left 58 Egyptians and 32 foreigners wounded. The Egyptian authorities have charged the same group was also responsible for the July 2005 attacks that killed some 70 people in Sharm El-Sheikh and those further up the coast that left 34 dead in October 2004. Both previous spates of attacks were followed by major raids in the Sinai, a vast desert and mountainous expanse mainly inhabited by Bedouin tribes. Intense fighting between police forces and armed Bedouins took place in Jabal Halal, near Jabal Al-Maghara, in the aftermath of the Sharm El-Sheikh attacks. Several suspects and special police forces were killed in the raids, during which thousands of Bedouins were rounded up. AFP
Three killed as police sweep Sinai for bomb suspects
