Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — Al Qaida has been targeting tourists in Egypt’s turbulent Sinai Peninsula.

On Feb. 16, at least four people were killed in an attack on a tourist bus in southeastern Sinai. Officials said a roadside bomb was detonated and killed three South Korean tourists and the Egyptian bus driver.

“I am deeply saddened by the incident,” Egyptian Tourism Minister Hesham Zazou said.

Officials said Al Qaida has been monitoring the flow of tourists to and from Sinai as part of the Islamist campaign against Egypt’s military-backed regime. They said Al Qaida, in cooperation with the ousted Muslim Brotherhood, expanded surveillance over traffic around Egypt’s Suez Canal into Sinai.

“We believe the terrorists are tracking civilian vehicles in the area of the canal,” an official said.

This marked the first bombing of a tourist target linked to the Islamist revolt in Sinai, which began in 2013. The Egyptian Interior Ministry said the bus, which began its journey from Cairo, left from Sinai’s St. Catherine’s monastery and arrived at the Egyptian border resort of Taba, next to Israel.

“The bus carrying tourists, mainly Korean, was waiting in line to pass
through the crossing when its front part exploded,” the Egyptian Foreign
Ministry said.

The tourists were said to have been sent by a South Korean church on a
pilgrimage. The bombing sparked an alert within Israel, which closed its
side of the Taba crossing. The Egyptian media said Egyptian authorities did
not allow Israeli ambulances to evacuate the injured Koreans to the Jewish
state.

“The attack showed that the terrorists had tracked the bus and prepared
the exact point to cause the explosion,” the official said.

The bombing, in which 33 tourists were injured, could signal the return
of an Al Qaida-aligned campaign against Egypt’s tourist sector. Over the
last decade, major suicide bombings took place at the Sinai resorts of
Dahab, Sharm e-Sheik and Taba.

“Terrorism has no religion,” South Sinai Gov. Khaled Fouda said. “The
police and the army are working to eliminate it.”

  Four killed in Sinai bus bombing as anti-Cairo terror campaign targets tourists, Hesham Zazou, Muslim Brotherhood, St. Catherine’s monastery, Taba