Pair who tried to kill tourists in Egyptian hotel were flying extremist group’s flag

TWO men unfurled the black banner of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant when they raided a hotel restaurant in Hurghada, Egypt, and stabbed three guests, it emerged yesterday.

The attackers entered the Bella Vista hotel beside the Red Sea on Friday.

A hotel worker said: “One of the attackers said: ‘There is no God but God. We will blow up this place.’”

Three hotel guests were stabbed – an Austrian couple, Renata and Wilhelm Weisslein, both 72, and Sammie Olovsson, a 27-year-old Swede, who was slashed four times in the neck. The injuries were not life threatening.

Mr Olovsson’s father, Jan-Eric, 64, said yesterday: “I myself had the gun pointed at me three times, and Sammie was stabbed with the knife. I told him to lie still. I got up a few times and when I saw it was clear, I ran out on the street and tried to get hold of an ambulance.”

Police shot dead one attacker, Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Mahfouz, 21, a student from the city of Giza near Cairo. A second man was wounded and detained. Hisham Zazou, the tourism minister, said the incident was “individually motivated” and the assailants “not part of an organisation”. The fact that they tried to raise a flag used by Isil calls this explanation into question.

Tourism in Egypt has been in crisis since a Russian airliner was destroyed by a bomb after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh last October, killing all 224 on board. Isil claimed responsibility.

Egypt is battling an insurgency largely based in the Sinai Peninsula, close to Hurghada.

Isil claimed it shot dead two Egypt policemen in Giza yesterday.