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No place on Earth seems immune to terrorist attacks with a Pakistani connection.
Police Seek 6 Pakistanis in Egypt Attack
By SARAH EL DEEB
The Associated Press
Monday, July 25, 2005; 6:07 AM
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt -- Police investigators said Monday that they were searching for six Pakistani men as the probe into the weekend's terrorist attack at this Red Sea resort widened.
Police were circulating photographs of the six, who have apparently been missing since before the attacks, at checkpoints in and around this southern Sinai resort city. An Associated Press correspondent who saw the images said the men appeared to be between the ages of 20 and 30.
The involvement of Pakistanis in the attack in Sharm el-Sheik would be unprecedented, as non-Egyptians have rarely been linked to attacks here. It would also be extremely difficult for a group of young Pakistanis not to be noticed in Sharm, one of the heaviest policed cities in Egypt and a favorite place of residence for President Hosni Mubarak.
An official at the Pakistan Embassy in Cairo said his embassy was in contact with Egyptian authorities over the issue of the missing Pakistanis.
"But they have not officially informed us that the Pakistanis are suspected of involvement in the bombing. They are only saying: 'We are searching for them. We cannot trace them,"' said Khalid Ahmed, a counselor at the Pakistani mission.
"It is very difficult for us to confirm whether any Pakistani was in Sharm el-Sheik but it is possible that someone may have been there. I have a strong belief that Pakistanis cannot be involved in terrorism here," he said.
Many Pakistanis use Egypt as a route to travel to Europe to find jobs, he said. Last week, police arrested between 40 and 45 Pakistanis in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria for being illegal immigrants.
Police have detained more than 70 people in Sharm and other parts of the Sinai Peninsula during the investigation, which is also following different threads, including possible Palestinian involvement and whether the attacks were linked to last October's bombings in two other Sinai resorts.
The investigators, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the inquiry, said they are looking into whether the six men had any involvement in carrying out Saturday's attack, Egypt's deadliest ever.
Police were to conduct DNA testing on the remains of a suicide bomber found in a car that rammed into the Ghazala Gardens Hotel in Naama Bay, the city's main tourist area, early Saturday. Two other blasts rocked a car park near the hotel and an area about two miles away called the Old Market.
According to local hospitals, Saturday's pre-dawn bombings killed at least 88 people; Egypt's Health Ministry put the death toll at 64. Hospitals said the ministry count does not include a number of sets of body parts. At least one American was killed.
If independently confirmed, any involvement of Pakistanis would suggest that those behind Saturday's bombings belong to a much wider terror network than previously thought.
Until the latest news broke Monday, suspicions had primarily focused on a Sinai-based network thought responsible for bombings in the area last October that also targeted tourist sites.
The involvement of the Pakistanis, if proven, would also increase suspicions that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida may have been involved in the attacks. The Saudi-born bin Laden is popular among militant Pakistani groups and is known to enjoy support in tribal areas close to the Afghan border.
On Sunday, security officials said the bombers appeared to have entered Sharm in two pickup trucks loaded with explosives hidden under vegetables and that police were searching for three suspects believed to have survived the bombings. It was unclear if police were linking those three in any way to the six Pakistanis being sought.
Before the attacks, the militants rubbed serial numbers off the trucks' engines, the officials said. Such serial numbers had been a key clue Egyptian investigators had used to track down those behind similar vehicle bombings last October against two resorts further north in the Sinai Peninsula, Taba and Ras Shitan.
Investigators were also examining whether the suicide bomber who set off the blast at the Ghazala was one of five suspects still at large from the October attacks that killed 34 people.
Police took DNA samples from the parents of the five Taba suspects to compare with bodies found at the Ghazala, a police official said in el-Arish, where the parents were briefly detained.
Egyptian authorities portrayed the Taba bombings as an extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than a homegrown Islamic militant movement or an al-Qaida-linked operation. They said a Palestinian who died in the attacks had recruited Bedouins and Egyptians to plot the bombings.
But the sophistication of the Sharm bombings _ and their timing on the heels of two rounds of explosions in London _ raised worries of a wider international connection and possible al-Qaida links.
Two rival claims of responsibility have emerged for the Sharm bombings, but neither statement could be authenticated. One was by the Abdullah Azzam Brigades of al-Qaida in Syria and Egypt, which also claimed responsibility for the October bombings. The other was by the previously unknown Holy Warriors of Egypt.
___
Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Maamoun Youssef and Hamza Hendawi in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.
At least the world is realizing what India has been saying all along
What doesnt kill me, Just makes me stronger :cool:
Again Pakistanis
Cheers!...on the rocks!!
Originally Posted by brownboi4eva
Well , it isnt.
And it wont.
Until a mushroom over Manhattan happens.
I doubt it would realise even after that.
What India could do , it has already done.
Egypt denies Pakistan bomb link
Egypt has ruled out any Pakistani role in last Saturday's resort bombings, the country's ambassador in Islamabad says.
Egyptian police are searching for six missing Pakistanis, but Hassan Haridi called it a "routine security check".
"We deny categorically any links between Pakistani nationals and Sharm al-Sheikh blasts," he said.
The official death toll in the bombings of a hotel area and a local market stands at 64, but hospital officials say the figure could be as high as 88.
The six Pakistanis, whose photographs have been distributed among police, disappeared from a Cairo hotel earlier this month.
No Pakistani national was involved in the terrorist attacks that rocked Sharm al-Sheikh late last Saturday
Egyptian embassy statement
Mr Haridi told the Reuters news agency that they were being sought for their own security. "This is a routine security check that happens anywhere in the world."
The BBC's Zaffar Abbas in Islamabad says the envoy's clarification has brought much-needed relief in Pakistani government circles.
Officials are already anxious about the country's image after reports that at least two of the four bombers who attacked London on 7 July had visited Pakistan.
Al-Qaeda claims
Meanwhile, a third previously unknown Islamist group has claimed responsibility for the bombings in a statement published on the internet.
The Tawhid and Jihad Group in Egypt said they were "to avenge our brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan ... and in response to the war against terror".
It also claimed to have carried out a bombing last October, apparently targeting Israeli tourists in eastern Sinai.
Two Islamist groups, one asserting links to al-Qaeda, have made unverified claims of responsibility for the attacks.
Egyptian authorities are continuing to question large numbers of detainees - including some Sinai Bedouin - in relation to the blasts.
On Monday, security officials say police fought a gun battle with a group of Bedouin near Sharm al-Sheikh.
Relatives of tourists missing since the attacks, including several from the UK, have started arriving in the Red Sea resort.
The Associated Press news agency reports that the heads of security in North and South Sinai provinces have been sacked after having failed to anticipate or prevent the bombings.
Sharm al-Sheikh is one of Egypt's most heavily guarded towns. It is the winter home of President Hosni Mubarak, hosts numerous summits and is the destination for about a quarter of the tourists who visit Egypt.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...st/4717117.stm
Bwahahaha awesome work Aryan.
Man how many threads will these guys create to up their agenda here on WAB? I already see three threads on WAB, talking about this.
I fail to understand the rationale behind Indians getting these small hard-ons when in reality pakistan's entire 80's and 90's terror-era was fully supported and backed by the United States???
now Wahabbi terror is suddenly bad??? or is it only bad when carried out in NYC?? or Iraq?? or is it still good in Chechnya or Kashmir??
Last edited by LUND; 26 Jul 05, at 17:30.
yeah sure but nothing like the hard-ons U TSPs get when innocent civilians get killed in the war against terrorist pigs in Kashmir.......I fail to understand the rationale behind Indians getting these small hard-ons when in reality pakistan's entire 80's and 90's terror-era was fully supported and backed by the United States???
now Wahabbi terror is suddenly bad??? or is it only bad when carried out in NYC?? or Iraq?? or is it still good in Chechnya or Kashmir??
And there will be more...to hell with them.
Pakistan will succeed into bettering his image...with or without these emptyheaded guys
Keep training the terrorist U will surely succeed in battering your terrorist country's image further. All the best....And there will be more...to hell with them.
Pakistan will succeed into bettering his image...with or without these emptyheaded guys
So anytime Pakistanis visit Egypt, there is a routine security check?
Yeah right, give me a break!
Ok...Here's another one for the sceptical one's:
Tracking down Egypt's bombers
By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst
The triple bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh on 23 July have left a trail of unanswered questions in their wake.
The attacks - on a hotel, a market and a car park - left at least 64 people dead, most of them Egyptians. It was the country's worst attack for more than 20 years.
Like other experts, Dr Magnus Ranstorp of the University of St Andrews regards a link between the Sharm al-Sheikh attacks and the London bombings earlier in the month as unlikely.
The Egyptian authorities will be focusing, he says, on home-grown groups - in particular, the group they hold responsible for the bombing of the Taba Hilton and other resorts last October.
The focus of those attacks, in which 34 people died, was Israeli tourists.
The focus this time seems to be the Egyptian state.
The Sharm al-Sheikh attack took place on the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution of 1952. It also coincided with the trial of some of those accused of involvement in the Taba bombings.
The latest attacks struck a heavy blow at Egypt's tourist industry, which brings in $6bn (£3.5bn) a year.
Al-Qaeda links?
But even if the perpetrators were Egyptian, were they linked to the global al-Qaeda network?
The bombers were probably working "under the Al-Qaeda banner", as Dr Ranstorp puts it. In other words, it is likely they shared its ideology, whether or not they had any operational links with it.
Several claims of responsibility have been made, and as usual it is hard to establish the authenticity of any of them.
One group, calling itself Tawhid and Jihad (Unity and Holy War), says it carried out both the Taba and the Sharm al-Sheikh attacks.
It claims to owe allegiance to the al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, and his Egyptian number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Round-up
The Egyptian authorities blamed the Taba attacks on a group of Egyptian Bedouin led by a Palestinian resident of al-Arish, a coastal town about 200 miles (320km) north of Sharm al-Sheikh.
They rounded up more than 2,000 people in the al-Arish area and, according to international human-rights groups, many were mistreated and tortured.
Following the latest attacks, dozens of people in al-Arish have been taken in for questioning, as well as Bedouin in other parts of the Sinai peninsula.
Confusion surrounds what role, if any, was played by six Pakistanis the Egyptian police say they are looking for.
Their release of photographs of five of the men prompted a flurry of media speculation about a "Pakistani connection".
This was subsequently denied by Egyptian and Pakistani officials alike. Egyptian police now say they consider the men as missing rather than suspects.
Meanwhile Egyptians are left wondering whether the attacks will provide their long-serving president, Hosni Mubarak, with a pretext to deflect American pressure for political reform.
Mr Mubarak is expected to seek a fifth term in office in presidential elections scheduled for 7 September.
----------------------------------------------------------
What's the name of that river in Egypt??
Good Job....Pakistanis you guys should celebrate....for ONCE it wasnt one of your militant groups...what a ground breaking event
cmon now....you guys should be embarassed about the fact that people point fingers at you when things happen just because of ur image....something you should strive to improve through community outreach programs in Pakistan and swift actions by your military and police aka Mushy should grow some balls and instead of being afraid of backlash actually go after people [wow im pro-pakistani today]
What doesnt kill me, Just makes me stronger :cool:
Nice try , but Islamic fundamentalism took roots in Pakistan from 1970s.It was only in the 80s that Uncle offered some help.I fail to understand the rationale behind Indians getting these small hard-ons when in reality pakistan's entire 80's and 90's terror-era was fully supported and backed by the United States???
We should be? But I don't know why we're laughing how pathetic some people here are, instead.Good Job....Pakistanis you guys should celebrate....for ONCE it wasnt one of your militant groups...what a ground breaking event
cmon now....you guys should be embarassed about the fact that people point fingers at you when things happen just because of ur image....something you should strive to improve through community outreach programs in Pakistan and swift actions by your military and police aka Mushy should grow some balls and instead of being afraid of backlash actually go after people [wow im pro-pakistani today]
May I say this on Aryan's behalf....
OWNED
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