Egypt sweeps Sinai for attackers after resort carnage

CAIRO, Sunday (AFP)

Egypt launched a vast manhunt Sunday after the multiple bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh that killed 88 people and fueled global terror fears after the London attacks.

Egypt's deadliest attacks, that came at the peak of the tourist season and killed at least nine foreigners, drew a barrage of condemnation from around the world and dealt a blow to a regime increasingly exposed to Islamist terrorism just weeks ahead of a landmark presidential election.

The bombings, claimed by an Al-Qaeda group, sent chills through a world still reeling from a series of attacks in London.

Egypt's national security forces started sweeping the Sinai peninsula hours after the explosions -- two of them suicide car bombs -- that struck a seafront hotel, a car park and a busy market area, security sources said.

Dozens were arrested and raids were ongoing Sunday, after Interior Minister Habib al-Adly claimed investigators already had leads and suggested the attacks could be connected to deadly anti-Israeli bombings on October 7 further north on the Sinai coast.

"This cowardly and criminal act which is aimed at destabilizing Egypt will reinforce our determination to press the battle against terror through to its eradication," President Hosni Mubarak said Saturday.

The bombings, which turned the jewel of Egypt's tourism industry into a nightmare of blood and destruction, were claimed by a group citing ties with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

A group calling itself the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Levant and Egypt said it carried out the bombings as a "response against the global evil powers which are spilling the blood of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya."

The authenticity of its Internet posting could not be verified.