Egyptian police exchanged fire with gunmen today as they hunted for six Pakistanis suspected of involvement in deadly bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday. The firefight with Bedouin gunmen erupted in the mountainous interior of the Sinai peninsula some 30 kilometres from the scene of Saturday's carnage on the coast, security officials said. It came after police surrounded the nearby villages of Khurum and Rweissat in overnight raids, they said. 'Two Pakistanis had been staying there and it is suspected that the bombs were assembled in this area,' an intelligence source said.
Pictures of the six Pakistanis believed to have entered Egypt in early July were distributed to police stations in the Sharm el-Sheikh area after the attacks, which followed an earlier bombing spree in Sinai resorts in October. Their passports were found in an unspecified Sharm el-Sheikh hotel, police said, adding that one of them may have died in the deadly bombings but stressing that the Pakistanis were not necessarily the bombers. Pakistani authorities said they had yet to be approached by their Egyptian counterparts about the six suspects. Pictures of more than 30 other suspects were also distributed, mostly Egyptians as well as internationally wanted terror suspects. At least 130 people have been arrested in a police dragnet as part of a massive search for the perpetrators of the attack on a hotel, a market and a parking lot. |