temple
LUXOR // A suicide bomber on Wednesday struck just steps away from the ancient temple of Karnak in the southern city of Luxor, one of Egypt’s most popular tourist attractions.
Security officers fired at the bomber before he could enter the temple. An accomplice was shot dead in the gunfight and another was wounded and captured.
The nationality of the attackers is not known.
The three men carrying bags had got out of a car in the temple’s car park, which immediately made the police suspicious.
One of the three started running when police ordered them to stop.
Officers fired at him and the explosive belt he was wearing blew up. The tourism ministry said the man detonated the device, killing himself instantly.
Two policemen and a staff member at the site were also wounded. Only a handful of tourists and Egyptians were inside the temple at the time.
The explosion left large parts of the temple’s car park littered with debris.
Hundreds of onlookers and workers from a row of shops just outside the temple gathered after the attack as ambulances rushed to the scene.
It was the second attack this month close to a major tourist attraction, marking an escalation and a change in tactics by militants who are waging a campaign of violence against the government of president Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
The extremists appear to be shifting focus from hitting security forces to targeting the crucial tourism industry.
Sustained attacks threaten to ruin the industry again, just as it was beginning to recover from the uprising in 2011. On June 3, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, killing two police officers.
The governor of Luxor, Mohammed Badr, said Wednesday’s attack was “an attempt to break into the temple of Karnak”.
“They didn’t make it in,” Mr Badr said.
The last time Luxor was hit by such a significant attack was in November 1997, when militants opened fire on tourists at the city’s 3,400-year-old Hatshepsut Temple on the west bank of the Nile, killing 58.
Tourism is the lifeblood of Luxor, home to some of Egypt’s most famous ancient temples and pharaonic tombs, including that of King Tutankhamun. The city has been hit hard by a sharp downturn in foreign visitors in the four years since Egypt’s 2011 uprising.
Wednesday’s attack bore all the hallmarks of militants who have been battling security forces in the strategic Sinai Peninsula for years.
Last year, the Sinai-based group Ansar Beit Al Maqdis pledged allegiance to ISIL, which has destroyed archaeological sites in Syria and Iraq, viewing them as idolatrous.
The campaign of violence in the Sinai accelerated and spread to other parts of Egypt following the 2013 military overthrow of president Mohammed Morsi. The militants say the attacks are in revenge for a government crackdown on supporters of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The attack on the Luxor temple comes as Egypt tries to rehabilitate its tourism industry, which accounted for as much as 20 per cent of foreign currency revenues before the 2011 revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak and later years of turmoil.
From a high of 14.7 million tourists in 2010, Egypt has had an average of around 9 million a year since then, though officials say tourists are now returning. The government says tourism industry revenues more than doubled to Dh14.7 billion in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year.
But Wednesday’s violence is likely to result in cancellations for bookings for Luxor – although that would only involve small numbers, given that the tourist season in Luxor ends around May when temperatures begin to rise above 40°C, keeping away until October.
* Associated Press
