CAIRO: Further suspects were taken in for questioning over the Al-Hussein bombings on Sunday while others have been released, according to various press reports.
Police have taken in 11 suspects from the site of the bombing for questioning while releasing three – two women wearing the niqab and a man – who had been detained on Monday and were the initial suspects.
Additionally, statements were taken from shopkeepers and vendors in the area who were also present when the bomb exploded. The blast Sunday night had killed a 17-year-old French girl and injured 25 others.
An interior ministry spokesman told Daily News Egypt, “We have to investigate and ascertain what happened. This is part of the investigation process; we need to question the people who were there.
Among the wounded are 17 French students, two Egyptians, three Saudis and a German woman.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but all the suspects who have been taken into custody were detained at the scene of the blast in the square in front of Al-Hussein Mosque.
Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that among the new 11 detainees were women and homeless children from the area.
The forensic report on the attack released by the police Tuesday stated that the bomb was a rudimentary device filled with gunpowder, rocks and metal and was set off by a washing machine timer.
The half-kilogram bomb was placed inside a plastic jar beneath one of the benches in the square overlooked by Al-Hussein mosque. It was not a nail bomb, according to the report.
Another bomb was found 30 meters away, but was defused in a controlled explosion an hour and a half after the first bomb went off.
According to Al-Ahram newspaper, security services believe the attack was the work of a small Islamist cell composed of between three and four people.
Concern is mounting that Sunday’s attack will hit even harder a tourism industry already reeling from the global economic crisis. In 2008, 13 million tourists visited Egypt bringing in $11 billion according to AFP.
Investment Bank EFG Hermes had already predicted a 15 percent decline in tourism revenues for this fiscal year prior to the bombing on Sunday.
“It’s still too early to tell how severe the repercussions of Sunday’s bombing will have. However, there is no doubt that we have been factoring in a steep decline of tourism revenues due to the financial crisis and Sunday’s bombing could only bode ill for sentiment in general, a market analyst told Daily News Egypt.
The last attack in the area was on April 7, 2005 when a suicide bomber set off an explosive device in Moski, also near the Khan El-Khalili bazaar – a street market popular with tourists and locals alike – and the Al-Hussein Mosque.
Three foreign tourists (two from France and one from the United States) were killed, and 11 Egyptians and seven other tourists were injured.
Later in the same month, another suicide bomber wounded seven in an attack near the Egyptian Museum.
