Sunday’s bomb blast on a bus carrying 33 tourists in the Red Sea resort town of Taba, which killed three South Koreans and the Egyptian bus driver, marked the first major attack on visitors to Egypt since 2006.
The attack represents a “new phase” in Egypt’s ongoing battle against terrorist attacks growing since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, according to Iman Ragab, a researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies Centre,
Until Sunday, all of the bomb attacks in recent months had targeted only security installations and personnel.
Rageb expressed fear that Sunday’s attack might open the door for a wave of terrorism similar to the one that took place in the 1990s, when Egypt was rocked by recurrent militant attacks on tourist sites across the country, which severely crippled tourism and threatened security.
In 1997, at least 58 foreigners and four Egyptians were killed by Islamic militants in Upper Egypt’s Luxor, a city that boasts a wealth of pharaonic-era sites.
For Major General Fouad Allam, former deputy head of state security, Sunday’s attack was no surprise. Allam explained that militants groups are willing to target “whatever helps them achieve their goal in destroying the Egyptian state, which includes targeting its economy.”
He added that the attack on civilians is not an escalation by militants but rather a mere opportunity that terrorists managed to seize.
“Secret organisations don’t have one coherent path that they abide to,” Allam said. “Whenever there is a chance for making a terrorist operation, they do it. It’s not necessarily targeting tourism or police all the way.”
Unlike Allam, Ragab sees the attack as a clear change of strategy by militants in Egypt: they are now trying to increase the cost of damages caused by their attacks, she says… see more
source: ahram online
Tags: bus attack, Egypt, Politics, South Korea
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.