VARIOUS: YASSER ARAFAT CONDEMNS BOMBING OF HILTON HOTEL IN TABA, REACTIONS LATEST.

Record ID: 358905

  • Title: VARIOUS: YASSER ARAFAT CONDEMNS BOMBING OF HILTON HOTEL IN TABA, REACTIONS LATEST.
  • Date: 11th October 2004
  • Summary: (W4) RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (OCTOBER 11, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT YASSER ARAFAT GREETING UN OFFICIALS 2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT YASSER ARAFAT, SAYING: "You know that from the beginning we were continuing (following up) with our brothers, the Egyptians, this crime, big crime and we have to put into our consideratio
  • Embargoed: 26th October 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: RAMALLAH, WEST BANK, MAALE ADUMIM, WEST BANK, TABA, EGYPT, ROME, ITALY
  • City:
  • Country: West Bank West Bank Egypt Italy
  • Reuters ID: LVAB3FNHGQRPNIE101D2XCU9V3RB
  • Story Text: Arafat condemns the bomb blast in Egypt, while
    the Israeli defence minister says that cooperation with the
    Egyptian government is good.



    Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Monday
    (October 11) reacted to the bombing of a Hilton hotel in
    the Red Sea resort of Taba which killed at least 32 people
    on Thursday (October 7) .

    Arafat called the bombings a "big crime" and asked why
    the head of Shabak (Israeli Intelligence) did not make
    public any warnings he may have had.

    "You know that from the beginning we were continuing
    (following up) with our brothers, the Egyptians, this
    crime, big crime and we have to put into our consideration
    a very important question, Avi Dichter (head of Shabak) had
    mentioned he is expecting these murders many days ago
    before it had been done, why he didn't mention it to us or
    not mention it to the Egyptians," Arafat said after a
    meeting with United Nations representatives in the West
    Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.

    Hamas, the main Palestinian faction behind suicide
    attacks that have killed hundreds of Israelis during a
    four-year-old uprising, denied any role in the explosions
    in Taba, near Egypt's border with Israel, but said it
    supported them.

    Israel suspected the attacks were linked to al Qaeda.

    A previously unknown pro-al Qaeda Islamist group called
    Islamic Tawhid Brigades claimed responsibility for the
    blast on a Web site. The claim, along with one from another
    unknown group calling itself the World Islamist Group,
    could not be verified.

    During a tour of a West Bank settlement, Isralei Defence
    Minister Shaul Mofaz told reporters the co-operation with
    Egypt was "good".

    Mofaz's comments came days after Israel's fire chief
    complained of insufficient cooperation from Egypt in rescue
    efforts at the Egyptian Red Sea resort hotel, which was
    torn apart by a bomb blast.

    An agreement between Israeli and Egyptian rescue
    officials was later reached after initial friction to
    cooperate in a search for people buried under the rubble.

    The fire chief complained that Egyptian authorities had
    delayed for hours approval of an Israeli request to move
    heavy equipment across the border to help remove rubble at
    the hotel.

    But Israel seemed anxious to avoid straining relations
    with Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab country to
    sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state and is currently
    trying to help smooth a planned Israeli pullout from the
    Gaza Strip.

    Mofaz also said the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim
    has become a city and will be annexed to Jerusalem in the
    future.

    "In the future it (Maale Adumim) will be annexed to
    Jerusalem and will be part of greater Jerusalem and will be
    what we call encompassing Jerusalem," Mofaz said.

    Bodies lay beneath the rubble of the luxury Hilton
    hotel in Taba after Thursday's blast. It was the target of
    the biggest of a series of explosions on the Red Sea coast
    of the Sinai peninsula.

    The explosions were the first major attacks on tourists
    in Egypt since 58 foreigners were killed in Luxor in 1997.

    Israeli tourists were the targets of a November 2002 al
    Qaeda bombing of a hotel in Kenya in which 15 people died.

    Sinai resorts had remained popular with Israelis
    despite animosity in Egypt towards the Jewish state. Israel
    captured Sinai in the 1967 war but returned it to Egypt
    after a 1979 peace deal, one of the few that Israel has
    with Arab countries.

    In his first public comments since the bombing in the
    Red Sea resort, Egyptian President Hosni called for an
    international conference on terrorism under the aupisces of
    the United Nations
    Mubarak, speaking in Rome after a meeting with the
    Italian president, said such a conference could help the
    international community find what he called an integrated
    approach to deal with extremism.

    "I repeat my call... for an international conference on
    international terrorism, under the auspices of the United
    Nations, he said after thanking Italy for its solidarity
    following the blasts, in which two Italians were killed.

    Mubarak said such a conference should study the causes
    of terrorism and help make a distinction between the
    efforts of people seeking their legitimate rights and
    attempts by a few deviant elements to impose their violent
    views on the world Two Italian sisters, Jessica and Sabrina
    Rinaudo, 19 and 22 years old, were also killed in the main
    bombing of the Hilton hotel in Taba.

    Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi also passed on
    his condolences for the lives lost in the terrorist attacks.


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