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© Copyright
Reuters Limited & U.S. Dive Travel Network.


CHRONOLOGY OF ATTACKS on TOURIST TARGETS IN EGYPT:
a DETAILED HISTORY from 1992 to the PRESENT.


(Derived from copyrighted reports by REUTERS,
the internationally respected British News Agency.
Reprinted with specific permission from the NYC Bureau.)


Following are notable incidents in the failed Moslem militant campaign to permanently cripple Egypt's lucrative tourist industry. History shows that the vast majority of tourists who visit Egypt for any reason, at any time of year, & to any locale, find their experience to be magical, exotic & a great adventure. Terrorism against live-aboard vessels on the Red Sea has been virtually non-existent, knowledgeable sources indicate.

We include this file not to meddle in your private vacation plans, nor to instill needless anxiety, but because U.S. Dive Travel strongly feels you need to study the issue of personal safety in Egypt before making an informed decision about whether to travel to this beautiful but troubled region. And the only way to be informed is to separate fact from rumor, history from fearful speculation.

Your safety & personal security are far more important to this company than any other aspect of your booking. Please read this important text completely & feel free to call your agent at U.S. Dive Travel if you have any questions. Thank you for taking the time. God bless you & your trip! Be careful & chances are excellent you will have one of the most exciting & visually gratifying scuba vacations possible on planet Earth.

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

2004

2005

2008

2009

2011

2012,   2013

2014

2015

  • CAIRO / Sept. 13, 2015 — The Associated Press reported today that Egyptian special forces who were pursuing Islamic militants in the country’s western desert mistakenly opened fire on Mexican tourists who were on a safari, killing 12 unarmed civilians and setting back the country’s efforts to revive its faltering tourism.

    Egyptian officials said the group had no formal permits to be in the area, but have not released a complete account of Sunday’s incident, in which another 10 people were wounded. Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned the attack and called for a full investigation. And Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Mexico’s foreign minister, said stunned survivors told officials they were attacked by helicopters and other aircraft.

    The incident, among the worst attacks on tourists ever in Egypt, occurred while the government is desperately trying to rekindle tourist flow, which has waned since the 2011 uprising that brought down President Hosni Mubarak.

    Egypt has mainly been battling insurgents in the northern Sinai Peninsula, on the other side of the country, where Islamic militants stepped up attacks on security forces after the military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013 amid large-scale protests against his rule.

    But in recent months militants loyal to the Islamic State have carried out a series of brutal attacks in Egypt, including the bombing of the Italian Consulate in Cairo plus kidnapping and beheading a Croatian oil surveyor who was working in the capital.

    Mona el-Bakri, the spokeswoman for the Dar al-Fouad hospital where the wounded were being treated, said two of the seven Mexicans receiving treatment also hold American citizenship. A State Department official said an American woman was injured. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to say more because the woman had not waived her privacy rights.

    According to Associated Press, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that a joint military-police force was pursuing “terrorist elements” in the area and fired on four vehicles that turned out to be carrying tourists. The ministry said the victims were Egyptian and Mexican. Egyptian authorities claim the safari convoy had wandered into a restricted area without formal permission.


    • October 31, 2015 --

      All 224 people on a Russian jetliner were killed today when an Airbus A321 crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula shortly after takeoff from the popular Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, officials reported. Shortly after the plane went down, the terror group ISIS took credit for planning & executing the crash. The Metrojet flight, carrying 217 passengers and seven crew, was en route from Sharm to St. Petersburg, Russia when it plummeted off radar screens & crashed in a remote desert sector, only 23 minutes into the doomed flight.

      This was the air accident with heaviest death toll in the history of Russian aviation, surpassing even a 1985 disaster in Uzbekistan in which 200 people died, the Russian-run news agency RIA reported. "Unfortunately, all passengers of flight 7K9268 Sharm el-Sheikh-Petersburg were killed," The Russian embassy in Cairo said, in Russian, on Twitter. "We express our condolences to the family and friends." Egyptian officials said the 7-person crew and 214 of the passengers and all of the crew were Russian and that three of the passengers were Ukrainian, RT.com reported. The victims included 17 children, aged 2 to 17, according to Russian authorities.

    • Dec. 4, 2015 --

      At least 16 people were killed and five more injured in an explosive Molotov Cocktail attack on a nightclub near Cairo, the Egyptian capital, according to the country's state-run news agency, MENA. The attack, with hand-made fire-bombs, took place early Friday morning, MENA said. This club is in the Agouza neighborhood in Egypt's Giza governorate on the outskirts of Cairo, on the western bank of the Nile River. That suburb is favored by a significant number of foreign nationals. State-run Al-Ahram reported that masked assailants attacked the nightclub, and the Egyptian prosecutor and police are currently investigating. Defying all credible logic, and widely dismissed by news pundits worldwide, Egypt's state-run Nile TV reported that authorities say the attackers' motive was criminal and not related to terrorism.

    2017

    • April 11, 2017 - CNN, the New York Times and wire services reported that Egypt's government declared a 3-month state of emergency after two suicide bombings targeted Coptic Christian churches on Palm Sunday, killing at least 49 worshippers and bystanders. The Islamist group ISIS claimed full responsibility for the bombings, which were aimed at a Christian religious minority on one of their most sacred holy days of the Christian calendar. At least 27 people died in a blast inside a church in the northern city of Tanta, and 78 people were injured, according to Egypt's state-run news agency Al-Ahram. In Alexandria, 18 civilians and four police officers were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Coptic church, Al-Ahram explained. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared three days of nationwide mourning after these terror bombings and said a three-month state of emergency would take effect once constitutional measures are finished. In response to these calculated terrorist attacks, the country will also form a supreme council to counter terrorism and extremism, Sisi said on national television April 9 after an emergency meeting of the country's National Defense Council.




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