EL-ARISH, Egypt – Security forces on Monday killed three suspects wanted in last week's deadly terrorist bombings that killed at least 21 people in a coastal Sinai Peninsula resort, officials said.
A policeman also died in the gunfight near the village of Risan, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of el-Arish, according to security and police officials who declined use of their names because they were not authorized to speak with reporters.
The three terror suspects killed Monday brought to six the number of wanted men killed in the past three days as Egyptian authorities continued their sweep through the barren, mountainous and forbidding Sinai interior looking for suspects linked to the April 24 triple bombing in Dahab, a popular coastal resort.
Authorities said 21 people died in the attack and have suggested three of that number may have been suicide bombers. A final determination awaits the return of DNA test results.
On Wednesday, two suicide bombers struck vehicles carrying international peacekeepers and police not far from this Mediterranean coastal city near the Egyptian border with Gaza.
Egyptian authorities have laid blame for the attacks on local terrorists, pointing the finger at disaffected Bedouin tribesmen who inhabit the peninsula. Terrorism experts, however, has said the attackers more likely were from al-Qaida linked terrorists cells that are given shelter by the semi-nomadic Bedouins.
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