Suicide Bombing at Luxor Temple Highlights Threat to Egypt Tourism
The Temple of Karnak in Luxor, Egypt was the site of a suicide bomb early Wednesday morning. There is debate on exact details and the timeline of the attack.
The New York Times reports that the four people affected were the three attackers and one policeman. The man who wore the bomb vest died once he detonated the bomb. Another male fired back at policemen, at which time he was shot and killed. The third attacker sustained injuries and is in an Egyptian hospital.
However, a conflicting report from The Huffington Post states that three Islamist militants were killed (including the suicide bomber) and four people were injured in the exchange of gunfire after the explosion, including two policemen. CNN reports that two militants were killed, one militant was injured, and four civilians and one policeman were injured.
The governor of Luxor, Mohammed Sayed Badr told of yet a different account, describing to the Associated Press three men unloading from a vehicle, each carrying a bag. Once one began running, the police fired at him causing the explosives he was wearing as a belt to go off. Then the second man began firing towards the police, and in returning gunfire, he was shot and killed. The third man was injured and arrested.
Governor Badr reported to the AP over the phone this morning, “no tourists were hurt in the bombing” and that the attack was “an attempt to break into the temple of Karnak.”
Security officials confirmed there were “only a handful of tourists and Egyptians inside the temple at the time of the late morning attack.”
The Temple of Karnak is one of the country’s most popular tourist sights, making it one of the most plausible places for a terrorist attack. This is the second attack on an Egyptian tourist site in about a week’s time, the other being the attack near the Pyramids of Giza on June 3 where a lone gunman shot and killed two tourism and antiquities policemen.
Foreigners were warned of the Islamic terror threat to Tourism after an explosion on a bus in South Sinai in February 2014. The strategy of terrorist groups attacking population dense areas like tourist attractions is a projected tactic intended to hurt Egypt’s delicate economic situation.
The tourism industry suffered greatly following Hosni Mubarak being ousted from office during the Arab Spring in 2011. Coincidentally, the Egyptian Embassy in Washington released a statement the day before the June 3 attack discussing the “doubling of tourism revenues during the first half of the current fiscal year over the comparable period in the previous fiscal year, and a surge in visitors from the United States.” Egyptian government officials have also said that revenues jumped “to $4 billion in the first half of this year, compared to $1.9 billion in the same period last year.” The tourism industry is vital to sustaining the Egyptian economy.
The New York Times reports that this attack is, “suggesting an ominous turn in a two-year-old campaign of violence against the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.”
These attacks follow a threat from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s “revolutionary youth,” made in February:
Fourth, all tourists who wish to come to Egypt must cancel their trips. They are not welcome on Egyptian soil in these difficult days.
Fifth, all the countries that provide material or political support to the coup must stop this support immediately – within a month from this communique. Otherwise, all their interests in the countries of the Middle East will be subject to harsh attacks with dire consequences.
The return of violence in Luxor calls to mind the November, 1997 attack at the 3, 400 year old Hatshepsut Temple that killed at least 70 people, which is the last large scale documented attack on a tourist attraction in Luxor, Egypt. That attack was carried out by Gamaa Islamiya, a jihadist group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. During Brotherhood rule, President Mohammed Morsi pardoned an individual involved in the attack, and made a leader of Gamaa Islamiya the governor of Luxor, although protests later forced his resignation.
Although there has yet to be a “claim of responsibility” for the attack, the Interior Ministry suggests it to be the workings of a “Sinai- based insurgent group Ansar Beir al- Maqdis” which pledged their allegiance to Islamic State last year. This jihadist group is guilty of multiple attacks, “killing hundreds of security personnel and [beheading] several local residents on charges of spying.” According to BBC, shortly after the attack Egypt’s antiquities minister issued “orders to increase security at tourist sites across the country.”
