Egyptian Militants Warn Tourists to Leave or Face Attack
Photo Credit: YahooA militant Islamist group has warned tourists to leave Egypt and threatened to attack any who stay after February 20, raising the prospect of a new front in a fast-growing insurgency in the biggest Arab nation.
The Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed two South Korean tourists and an Egyptian on Sunday, made the statement on an affiliated Twitter account.
“We recommend tourists to get out safely before the expiry of the deadline,” read the tweet, written in English, which Egypt’s prime minister said on Tuesday aimed to undermine the political process begun after an army takeover in July.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has said that it does not post statements on social media sites, but statements that appeared on the Twitter account in the past have afterwards surfaced on jihadist websites which the group says it does use.
Islamist militants have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the army deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi seven months ago, but Sunday’s attack on a tourist bus marks a tactical shift to soft targets that could devastate an economy already reeling from political turmoil.
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