In a number of press interviews Interior Minister , this week, set out to stem the speculation surrounding the Taba attacks' alleged culprits. Reem Nafie reports Even after the Interior Ministry had identified Iyad Said Saleh, a Palestinian mini- bus driver from Al-Arish in Northern Sinai, as the mastermind of the 7 October Taba attacks, scepticism about the viability of these accusations remained rife. The general public was still wondering whether Al-Qaeda, Mossad, or groups of Egyptians or Palestinians had carried out the bombings at the Taba Hilton and two camps in Nuweiba. Their speculations were fuelled by the secrecy surrounding the official investigations themselves. Neither the Interior Ministry nor State Security Investigation had provided details of any progress that had been made until the sudden 25 October statement blaming Saleh and Suleiman Ahmed Saleh Fulaifel for the crimes. Because of the scale of the attacks, and the clearly sophisticated level of planning that had gone into them, many assumed that Fulaifel and Saleh were members of Al-Qaeda, or some other major global terror group. The fact that neither of the men were available for questioning -- the ministry said they had accidentally killed themselves in the Taba bombing -- made matters even more uncertain. Israel, for one, was still sticking to the Al-Qaeda hypothesis that had emerged immediately following the attacks. On Monday, Interior Minister Habib El- Adli decided to speak up, in an attempt to quell all the disparate talk of who might have really been behind the bombings. In widely publicised remarks, El-Adli adamantly told the press that Al-Qaeda had played no role in the bombings, and that those who carried out the attacks were motivated by anger over the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The minister said confessions by some of the other suspects, and evidence gathered by investigators, indicated that no foreign terrorist groups were involved. "Investigations did not point to any link between the executing group and any local or foreign organisation, or to cells belonging to Al-Qaeda," El-Adli told reporters. The explosions in Taba were "reflections of the current cycle of violence in the Palestinian territories, and the feelings of frustration and hopelessness resulting from it", he said. He said that Egypt would not allow its territory to become an extension for the violence in Palestine. El-Adli said that police were still searching for Mohamed Ahmed Saleh Fulaifel and Hamdan Gomaa Tarabeen, who allegedly carried out the attacks on the tourist camps in Nuweiba, but managed to escape before the explosives detonated. He also said that five other suspects stand accused of providing the other four with help in manufacturing the bombs from ordnance found in Sinai, and stealing the three vehicles used in the attacks. They were identified as Hamdan Salama Salem, Mohamed Ga'ez Sobh, Mohamed Abdallah Robaa', Ihab Mahmoud Abdu, and Mohamed Ahmed El-Sewerky. When asked if there was any doubt that those arrested might not be the culprits, El-Adli said, "the evidence is clear -- the statements of reliable witnesses, material indications, and confessions of the accused all add up, and are currently being gathered for the prosecutors." Israel, for one, remained convinced that Al-Qaeda was involved in the attacks. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Al-Ahram -- in an interview published on the same day as El-Adli's statements -- that the bombing techniques bore the hallmark of international terror groups like Al-Qaeda. "Information we have is that Al-Qaeda is involved, whether directly or indirectly," Olmert said. El-Adli and Israel seemed at odds on another point as well. Whereas Israeli officials had said that Egypt was warned about potential attacks months before they occurred, El-Adli insisted that Egypt had not received any "definite" warning. Egyptian tourism officials, meanwhile, announced new measures meant to revive tourism in the Red Sea area. One major step was the cancellation of arrival taxes for Israeli visitors arriving by land. The move was expected to encourage Israeli tourists to come back to Taba. The government also said charter airlines serving the airport near Taba would be eligible for financial aid. Deputy Tourism Minister Ahmed El- Khadem said Red Sea resort tourism had experienced a five per cent drop immediately following the attacks; three weeks later, however, he said, "the tourism situation is improving." Tourism Minister Ahmed El-Maghrabi also remained optimistic, saying the terror attacks would only have a limited effect on overall tourism to Egypt. The ministry, he said, had instructed Egyptian travel agencies to report on hotel booking cancellations; as of last week, the numbers had been insignificant.
