Muslim Militants Blamed For Attack That Killed 18 Greek Tourists In Egypt May Have Been Mistaken For Israelis

In an attack that may have been a case of mistaken identity, three men opened fire with submachine guns Thursday at a hotel near the pyramids, killing 18 Greeks on a pilgrimage to Christian holy sites. Seventeen people were wounded.

Police blamed Muslim insurgents for the attack, the deadliest in their four-year campaign to overthrow the largely secular government and install strict Islamic rule.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the insurgents have targeted tourists in the past to cripple Egypt’s vital tourism industry.

Police officials said they were investigating whether the gunmen mistook the Greeks for Israelis, who are known to frequent the hotel. Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon this week has outraged much of the Muslim world.

As with the dead, all but one of the 17 wounded - an Egyptian parking attendant - were Greek tourists, most of them elderly. Three of them were hospitalized in critical condition.

The attack began at about 7 a.m. as the tourists, part of an 88-member group traveling from Athens, were about to board a bus outside the Europa Hotel on Pyramids Road.

Shouting “God is Great!” - the war cry of Muslim militants around the world - the attackers sprayed gunfire for five frenzied minutes, then escaped with a driver in a van, witnesses and police said.

“They knocked us all down. They were firing. It was chaos. I fell down. I lost my teeth. I lost my glasses,” Ioannis Manolakakis, who was injured in the arm, told Athens’ Skai radio station.

The attack left the eight-story hotel riddled with dozens of bullet holes, its front steps splashed with pools of blood. Sandwiches, water bottles and shoes were strewn around the area. Guests were weeping and making the sign of the cross.

Some witnesses said the three gunmen first attacked the bus, then, realizing it was empty, redirected their fire to people on the ground.

“Suddenly we saw people falling,” said bellboy Sayed Zaghloul. “If the bus had not been there, it would have been worse.” The bus windows were shattered by bullets.

Witnesses also said the attackers barged into the hotel and killed one man in a ground-floor restaurant. Police and hotel officials denied that.

A Greek government spokesman called the attack a “terrorist act” and said there was no justification for killing so many people. White House spokesman Mike McCurry said it was a “tragic reminder” of the danger “desperate individuals” pose to peace.

For the past two years, the Muslim insurgents have largely confined their attacks to southern Egypt. Thursday’s attack brings the 4-year death toll to nearly 950 people; most of the dead have been police and militants, but 26 foreigners have also been killed.

The last major attack on tourists in Cairo took place Dec. 27, 1993, when gunmen attacked a tour bus with explosives and gunfire, wounding eight Austrian tourists and eight Egyptian passersby.

The major movement behind the insurgency - al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group - claimed responsibility for that attack.

Graphic: Tourist attacks