| Follow-up and a different source than the one posted by Emily; more at the link. |
| Rat bastards. |
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," 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 that was 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. The Ghazala was "completely burned down, destroyed," Amal Mustafa, 28, an Egyptian who was visiting Sharm with her family, said after driving by the site. Footage of the hotel, a three-story complex, showed parts of the building burned out with walls collapsed.
Another car bomb exploded in the Old Market, an area a few kilometers 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. Another blast went off near the Movenpick Hotel, according to 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 with the death toll holding at 31 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 because they were giving information not yet included in the official statement.
It was the deadliest attack in Egypt in nearly a decade. In October 2004, a series of explosions hit several hotels in the Sinai resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan, about 100 miles northwest along the Gulf of Aqaba coast, killing 34 people. Egyptian authorities said that attack was linked to Israeli-Palestinian violence and launched a large wave of arrests in Sinai.
President Hosni Mubarak has a residence in Sharm el-Sheik, at a resort several kilometers outside Naama Bay, and often lives there for weeks at a time in the winter. During the summer, he stays at a residence in the northern city of Alexandria.
A London police officer, Charlie Ives, who was on holiday, told BBC Television that he was in a street cafe about 50 meters away from where two explosions went off.