As security forces continue to pursue the culprits, investigations are leaning to a possible link with Taba. Jailan Halawi reports South Sinai's rugged, mountainous regions are being combed by security forces on the lookout for suspects linked to the Sharm El-Sheikh bombings that left 64 people dead and about 200 injured on Saturday. President Hosni Mubarak, vowing to dig terrorism "out by its roots", has ordered that security be enhanced around Sharm El-Sheikh. Securing all the entrances and exits to and from the city is a key component of that plan, as is placing the entire area under airtight surveillance, and especially places populated by Bedouins. Investigators believe that three men, one of them possibly at large, were behind the blasts. They said the explosives used were similar to those used in last October's Taba bombings, which were blamed on a cell led by a Palestinian resident of the northern Sinai town of Al-Arish. Those investigations led to the arrests of hundreds of people, in a campaign that prompted widespread charges of police abuse and torture. Human rights groups say police detained some 2,500 people after the Taba attacks, mistreating many of them. The government says that number is exaggerated, and that it investigates all allegations of torture. Some analysts are saying the Sharm El-Sheikh attacks were carried out as a form of revenge for what happened to the Taba detainees. There have been unconfirmed reports naming one of the prime suspects in the Sharm El-Sheikh attacks as Moussa Badran, who might have died at the wheel of a vehicle that blew up in front of the Ghazala Gardens Hotel. Interior Ministry sources said that it was too early to say whether or not the body they found belonged to Badran. Earlier reports confused between Moussa and his brother Youssef, the latter, according to security officials, remains clear and away from any suspicions and is currently living with his family in Al-Arish. Egyptian police are further investigating the possibility that Mohamed Feleifel, the brother of one of the Taba bombers, was the person who drove the suicide car bomb into the Ghazala Gardens Hotel. According to a top ranking security official speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly on customary condition of anonymity, DNA samples were taken from the parents of a fugitive from the Taba bombings, whom police suspect may have been one of those involved in Saturday's blasts. He said that investigators had already taken DNA samples from remains left at the bomb sites. The perpetrators reportedly delivered the explosives in two small green Isuzu pickups with the intention of bombing a five-star hotel, but were stopped at a checkpoint, and instead detonated the explosives in the nearby busy arcade of the city's Old Market. The bombs were detonated in succession around 1:30am on Saturday. The first blast, in a pickup truck driven by a suicide bomber, left a crater 10 feet wide and about three feet deep in the middle of a street housing a two-storey shopping mall and an arcade of shops and cafés. The second, also a suicide bomb, was driven into the reception area of the Ghazala Gardens Hotel, after it sped past a security checkpoint. The third, carried out by a person believed to be at large, followed minutes later at a beach front parking lot and shuttle stop frequented by tourists. Police say it was an explosive device left in a bag. Earlier press reports speculated that a group of six missing Pakistanis might be involved in Saturday's bombings. That connection, however, was soon ruled out by Mohamed Shaarawi, assistant to the interior minister, who said, "there were no Pakistanis implicated in the bombings." It is widely believed that the missing Pakistanis were illegal workers who probably fled to Israel via the desert. The Egyptian ambassador to Pakistan, Hussein Haridi, also denied reports that Pakistanis were involved in the attacks. Police have rounded up an unidentified number of suspects over the past days for questioning, but no further details were divulged. Meanwhile, three groups have claimed responsibility for the attacks. Shortly after the bombings, the Abdallah Azzam Brigades, an Al-Qaeda affiliate and the same group that claimed responsibility for the Taba bombings, was the first. The Brigade of Sinai Martyrs and the Al-Tawheed and Jihad Group in Egypt made subsequent claims. The latter was posted on an Islamist Web site often used by Al-Qaeda in Iraq. It said it carried out both the Taba and Sharm El-Sheikh attacks as an act of "obedience to the leaders of jihad in Al-Qaeda, Sheikh Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahri", and to avenge the "oppressed brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan".
