CAIRO: Seven people, Egyptian and foreign, with ties to Al-Qaeda were arrested in connection with last February's Al-Hussein bombing, according to a statement by the Ministry of Interior. They were arrested while in possession of weapons and ammunition and were planning further attacks, according to the statement. Targets were reported to have been tourist sites and oil installations in Sinai. Two Egyptians were identified; Ahmed Mohammed Siddiq and Khaled Mahmoud Moustafa, and the Ministry of Interior claimed that they had entered the Gaza Strip through tunnels to receive training in the use of explosives. The statement said that one of the suspects in custody had confessed to their involvement in the bombing in Khan Al-Khalili near the Al-Hussein Mosque. Those arrested besides the two Egyptians were two Palestinians, a British man of Egyptian descent, a Belgian of Tunisian descent and a French woman of Algerian descent. The two Palestinians are purportedly linked to a group called the Islamic Palestinian Army. It is this group that kidnapped captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit with Hamas and were also behind the kidnapping of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in Gaza last year. It was the Belgian, according to the statement, who stated he had been instructed to travel to Belgium to contact Al-Qaeda operatives to coordinate an attack in France. A locally made explosion went off under a bench near Al-Hussein mosque on Feb. 22 injuring 23 and causing the death of a 17-year-old female French student. Another canister was exploded in a controlled demolition by authorities. Minister of Legal and Parliamentary affairs Mufid Shehab told the Shoura Council last Monday that security forces have acquired important information on the perpetrators of the bombing in Al-Hussein. Shehab told the members of the council that he had received a phone call from Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly who had provided him with significant details on the cell responsible for the bombing.
