Posted on 10/09/2004 5:18:41 PM PDT by AdamSelene235
TABA, Egypt Israeli and Egyptian investigators said Friday that they believe a Peugeot sport-utility vehicle crammed with more than 400 pounds of explosives caused Thursday's devastating blast at the Taba Hilton, which killed at least 30 people, ripped the front rooms off the 11-story hotel and tossed the mangled wreckage of another car into the middle of a banquet hall.
Rescue workers using cranes, bulldozers and chain saws worked late into the night Friday in search of more bodies in the debris of the Red Sea resort hotel, which had been packed with vacationers from Israel, Russia and Egypt. One woman's bloodied remains were found in a bathtub that had plunged from the eighth floor to the ground.
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Israel's deputy defense minister, Zeev Boim, said the bombing, which was far more powerful than the suicide bombings employed against Israelis by Palestinian guerrillas during the last four years of conflict, bore the earmarks of an al-Qaida operation.
"It's not the kind of attack that we know comes from Palestinian terror organizations," Boim told reporters at the Israeli border, just a block from the hotel, a frequent meeting place for Middle East peace negotiators and a popular destination for Israeli and Russian tourists. "In my opinion, it fits more with attacks by international terror groups like al-Qaida or branches of it."
In late 2002, al-Qaida asserted responsibility for the car bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, that killed 15 people, including three Israeli tourists. Five minutes before that attack, assailants fired two shoulder-held missiles at a Boeing 757 Arkia Israeli Airlines charter plane bound for Tel Aviv as it took off from Mombasa's airport. The missiles missed their target.
Israeli officials also were investigating two blasts reported at about the same time Thursday night at the resort of Ras Shytan, about 30 miles south of Taba, part of the string of beach destinations that Egypt calls the Red Sea Riviera. Five people were killed and an estimated 38 injured in those explosions, according to Egyptian hospital officials.
More than 100 people were wounded in the Taba Hilton blast, Israeli and Egyptian authorities said.
The reports of the multiple bombings sent thousands of frightened Israelis most of them on foot streaming out of the beach resorts and into Israel, cutting short vacations over the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which commemorates the ancient Israelites' flight from Egypt. On the crowded highway leading north to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, cars loaded with camping gear and surfboards were sandwiched between ambulances and packed tourist buses.
Across Egypt on Friday, major tourist attractions such as the Giza pyramids and the Valley of the Kings in Luxor were closed to the public, and police tightened security around other major sites. The attacks are likely to deal a blow to Egypt's $4.6 billion tourism industry, which had been thriving in recent years.
I knew it couldn't have been terrorists.
I read this today on the "Daily Comrade" and could not believe the headline. Need to send it to Rush. He will make Boulder look like the idiot town it is.
A French SUV......It boggles the mind and tortures the eyes.
I knew it couldn't have been terrorists.
Of course not, it was a French-made SUV.
The reports of the multiple bombings sent thousands of frightened Israelis most of them on foot streaming out of the beach resorts and into Israel, cutting short vacations over the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which commemorates the ancient Israelites' flight from Egypt.
Would to God those tourists had kept out of Egypt, period.
They are doing quite well on their own.
LOL
I've read about how Jews are treated in France. Now they've trained their SUVS to do the dirty work. /sarcasm.
I was kind of surprised Israelis vacation in Egypt.
If you can't control your SUV, it should be either nuetered & kept penned in the garage, or euthanized.
It is bad enough that they sneak around attacking people, buildings and cars, but when they start strapping on 400 pound suicide belts and blowing themselves up, it is high time to round them all up and hustle them to the nearest wrecking yard.
Nah, simply impose a SUV tax, of, oh, I don't know 1% of his net worth and hire a lawyer to find a loop hole so he doesn't have to pay it.
According to the BBC and Reuters and the AP it was a militant SUV, or an insurgent SUV. They as a policy don't call them terrorist SUVs.
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