Suicide bomber targets ancient Egyptian temple
Attack on Karnak raises fears that militants are targeting tourism sites key to economy
CAIRO, EGYPT— Militants set off an explosion near the Karnak temple in Luxor on Wednesday, the second assault in about a week targeting antiquities at Egyptian tourist sites, suggesting an ominous turn in a twoyear-old campaign of violence against the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
Attacks had previously focused mainly on the Egyptian security forces that supported el-Sissi in his ouster of president Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood almost two years ago. But the quick succession of recent attacks on antiquities suggests that militants may also now be targeting the tourism industry — a pillar of the Egyptian economy — in a possible reversion to the tactics of the Islamist insurgency that flared here in the 1990s.
Security officials said a suicide bomber in Luxor, about 650 kilometres south of Cairo, had detonated explosives in a vest and had died.
Officials said police had exchanged gunfire with the attackers, killing a second militant and wounding a third. A police officer was also hurt, the officials said, but there was no damage to the temple or other antiquities. Later, officials said another person might have been injured.
The attack came a week after gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed two tourism police officers near the gate of the complex that contains the pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx, across the Nile from Cairo.
For the first 18 months after the takeover that brought el-Sissi to power, militant attacks almost exclusively targeted military and police personnel, leaving hundreds dead. The militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, based in the North Sinai, claimed responsibility for most of the violence and, last fall, pledged its loyalty to the Islamic State.
The shootings and small bombs then began to target businesses and critical infrastructure such as electrical power stations in Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere, causing some civilian casualties but mainly seeking to damage the economy.
Shadowy new groups with names such as Revolutionary Punishment and the Popular Resistance Movement began claiming responsibility for many of the attacks.
The most recent attacks raise the possibility that militants may now be turning to attacks on the tourism sector as an alternative strategy to impair any economic recovery and to destabilize the government.
Egypt depends on a steady flow of tourists as a major source of hard currency and the past four years of unrest have taken a heavy toll on the economy, mainly because of their effects on the tourism industry. Just a few successful attacks or bombings can scare tourists away and cripple the industry.
The Luxor attack was reminiscent of a mass shooting in 1997 at an archeological site on the other side of the Nile, when attackers from a militant organization, the Islamic Group, shot and killed more than 60 people, most of them tourists.
Historians say that attack backfired badly against the militants, alienated the public and bolstered support for then-president Hosni Mubarak.