Terror in Egypt

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- As many as seven explosions, including at least four car bombs, struck Egypt's Red Sea resort Sham el-Sheik early Saturday, hitting several hotels packed with European and Egyptian tourists and killing at least 45 people in the deadliest attack in Egypt in nearly a decade, witnesses and police said.

Saturday's explosions in quick succession starting at 1:15 a.m. local time shook windows two kilometres away. Smoke and fire rose from Nam Bay, a main strip of beach hotels in the desert city at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, also popular with Israeli tourists, witnesses said.

Dazed tourists milled about the darkened streets as Egyptian rescuers searched for dead and injured and ambulances sped away with victims.

"There seemed to be a lot of bodies strewn across the road" near one cafe, British policeman Chris Reynolds, visiting from Birmingham, England, told the BBC by telephone.

"It was horrendous."

At least four car bombs were used in the attack, said a security official in the operations control room in Cairo monitoring the crisis. One went off in the driveway of the Ghazala Gardens hotel, a 176-room four-star resort on the main strip of hotels in Naama Bay, said the governor of South Sinai province, Mustafa Afifi.

...Footage of the hotel, a three-storey complex, showed parts of the building burned out with walls collapsed.

Another car bomb exploded in the Old Market, an area a few kilometres away, killing 17 people - believed to be Egyptians - sitting at a nearby outdoor coffee shop, the control room official said. Three minibuses were set ablaze, though it was not clear if they were carrying passengers, the official said.

Another blast went off near the Movenpick Hotel, said a receptionist there who declined to identify himself.

Security officials put the toll at 45 killed and around 200 wounded. The Interior Ministry put out a statement putting the toll at 31 people and 107 wounded.

The dead in the Sharm blasts included British, Russian, Dutch, Kuwaitis, Saudis, Qataris and Egyptians, a security official said. The officials, including the one in the control crisis, were speaking on condition of anonymity.

It appears that 2005 could be deemed the Summer of Bombs.

As in London, the terrorists meant to kill indiscriminately. They targeted civilians, tourists packed into hotels.

There is no justification for this.

This is pure evil.

If the past weeks don't prove that the scourge of radical Islamic fundamentalism needs to be defeated, what will?

For the moral equivalency crowd:

Are the terrorists acting as liberators?

Have the terrorists freed millions of oppressed people?

Will their fight result in greater rights for women and girls receiving an education?

Will free elections be held because the terrorists murdered civilians?

Do the terrorists want peace?