Attack on Egyptian Red Sea resort leaves tourists wounded

PanARMENIAN.Net - Two armed assailants attacked a hotel in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Hurghada on Friday, January 8, wounding three foreign tourists, Egyptian officials said, according to Reuters.

The Security Information Center of Egypt's Ministry of Interior said in a statement that two Austrians and a Swede had been injured while the attackers were trying to escape.

One of the assailants was killed by security forces and another was in custody, the statement said, adding that the attackers were armed with an air gun and knives. It said an investigation was underway.

Reports of what transpired at the hotel differed during the day. Security sources had initially said the attackers were armed with a gun, a knife and a suicide belt, and that they had arrived by sea to launch the onslaught on the beachside hotel.

They said security forces had killed the attacker wearing the suicide bomb, and that one of the injured was from Denmark and the other from Germany.

The Interior Ministry said earlier on Friday that one of the attackers was a student from the Cairo suburb of Giza.

Egypt is fighting a wave of Islamist militancy, which began as attacks on security forces in remote regions of the Sinai, but is increasingly focusing on targets previously considered safe such as the tourist resorts on the Red Sea.