- SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt
(Reuters)
-- The Egyptian government has said Israel had rushed to judgment when
it blamed the al Qaeda organisation for three explosions at Egyptian Red
Sea resorts frequented by Israelis.
-
- Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim said on Friday
a group similar to al Qaeda appeared to be responsible for the bombings,
which killed at least 33 people, mostly Israeli tourists spending a Jewish
holiday on the beach.
-
- "We believe that is a very hasty assessment by the
Israeli side. On what bases is such an assessment built?" said
Egyptian
presidential spokesman Maged Abdel Fattah on Saturday.
-
- "Such incidents have very many aspects which must
be studied ... So we must not be driven by attempts to push in a particular
direction," he added.
-
- "Why should we stick to al Qaeda and leave aside
the other groups which have claimed responsibility?" he said. Three
previously unknown groups with Islamist-sounding names have said they
carried
out the attacks.
-
- Abdel Fattah said it was too early to say either who
was responsible for the Thursday bombings, the most serious attack on
tourists
in Egypt since 1997, or where the explosives came from or what was the
purpose of the attacks.
-
- An Egyptian security source said on Friday that Egypt
was working on the assumption that an Islamist group related to al Qaeda
was behind the bombings but other Egyptian officials linked the attack
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
-
- The Egyptian spokesman was speaking after talks in the
Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
and Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.
-
- In remarks to reporters, translated into Arabic, Bondevik
said the Taba attacks had their roots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He quoted Mubarak as saying such incidents could recur unless there were
solutions in that conflict and in Iraq.
-
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