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I woke up this morning in Alexandria at 5 'o clock to a phone call from my aunt who was in Hurghada and on her way to Sharm el-Sheikh.
"You were right, " she says.
"Right about what?"
"Remember when you said you didn't want to go to Sharm with us because it might be bombed. Well, you were right. The Al-Ghazala hotel that I booked got bombed this morning."
She reports that the Egyptian government is claiming there is no relation between these attacks and the 7-7 attacks on London -- but the Egyptian press isn't convinced.
Via email, prior to the attacks on Cairo, I asked her "So how does the Egyptian public feel about terrorism in general?" She emailed back, "I don't know if you've heard yet, but there was a terrorist attack here in Egypt early this morning. So to answer your question about how Egyptians feel about terrorism, visit my blog and read today's post." It sounds to me like she's saying that attitudes in Egypt regarding terrorism have been influenced to the detriment of the terrorists by the Cairo attacks.
From Big Pharoah:
Terror hit the nerve of Egypt's tourism. The Sharm El Sheikh resort is literally the epicenter of the tourism industry. One of Egypt's most beautiful spots. The terrorists knew where to hit. They knew where it will hurt. Up till now we know that 4 car bombs killed 43 people. The explosions were in different places across the resort.
The attacks were very well organized and very sophisticated. We truly entered world war 3.
I have been to Sharm countless times. As I was hearing the eyewitness reports, I could feel I was standing right there. The attacks are very serious and deadly to Egypt.
I just remembered the headline of an article written by Sayed El Qimni (who stopped writing after receiving threats) right after the Taba bombings last year. The headline read: This is Egypt you dogs of hell.
I just scanned several Egyptian news sites. I didn't yet find editorials on the Cairo attacks, but I found two on the London attacks -- blaming the U.S. and Israel.
Let's see if the tune of the published opinion pieces changes now that the authors' own country is getting bombed, in such close proximity time-wise to the attacks on a western country.
