AFP – Gunmen opened fire on a five-star hotel in Cairo near the famed Giza pyramids on Friday, an Egyptian police general said, in what appeared to be a labour dispute.
Interior ministry spokesman General Hany Abdel Latif said the attack was carried out by laid off hotel workers, and that there were no casualties.
The attackers fired birdshot or pistol rounds at the Amarante Pyramids Hotel, he told AFP.
A hotel employee who requested anonymity said the attack happened early in the morning, and that police were investigating.
The official MENA news agency reported police were searching for the laid off workers suspected of being behind the shooting.
The attackers were angered after they were refused entry to the hotel, the agency reported.
An AFP correspondent said the scene of the attack was calm by midday on Friday, with the only security presence being the usual hotel guard.
Since the military’s overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July, militants have escalated attacks in the capital and the restive Sinai peninsula.
The violence has raised fears of a return to previous militant campaigns in the 1990s and between 2004 and 2006 in which tourists were targeted.
But shooting and bombing attacks mostly in the Sinai have targeted mostly security forces over the past four months.
