Bombings Egypt

Armed men shouting "God is greater!" firebombed and shot into a crowded tour bus in the heart of this city Thursday, setting off a conflagration and gun battle that killed nine German tourists and their Egyptian driver. It was the worst assault on tourists in Cairo in 17 months.

Under a steady cold rain, members of the region's Coptic Christian Egyptian community demonstrated in Westwood on Sunday in the wake of a New Year's Day church bombing in Egypt that killed 25 and injured dozens more. Carrying crucifixes, pictures of Jesus and handmade signs that drooped in the rain, the demonstrators gathered in front of the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard and called on U.S. officials to pressure the Egyptian government to provide security for that country's Christian minority.

Hundreds of tourists poured into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, undeterred by a fire-bomb attack that killed nine Germans and their driver and raised doubts about the success of the government's crackdown against Islamic rebels. The government moved quickly after the assault to reaffirm that Egypt was safe for tourism, saying the attack on a tourist bus in the museum's parking lot was a "random criminal act."

A devastating New Year's Day terrorist bombing at a Coptic church in Egypt that killed 21 people was the latest in a spate of violent assaults against the Middle East's vulnerable Christian communities. The car bomb explosion also injured 79 people just after midnight Saturday as worshipers were leaving a New Year's Mass at the Saints Church in east Alexandria, Egyptian officials said. The bombing sparked street clashes between police and angry Copts, who hurled stones, stormed a nearby mosque and threw some of its books into the street.

A bomb planted in a packed coffee shop in the heart of Cairo exploded, killing a Swede and a Turk and injuring 18 other people, police said. Doctors at Kasr Aini Hospital identified the wounded as two Americans, two Somalis, a Canadian, a Frenchman and 12 Egyptians. The cause of the explosion that ripped through the coffee shop, often frequented by foreigners, was not immediately known. Security sources said Muslim extremists were suspected.

Six people were killed and more than 1,000 required treatment when smoke bombs exploded in a military chemicals depot in Alexandria, Egypt, sparking a fire that spewed a cloud of black vapor across a densely populated area, officials said. Thousands of people fled their homes or were evacuated as the fire raged until nightfall in Egypt's second-largest city. Police sealed off the area after evacuating schools, homes and factories.

Islamic militants escalated their campaign of terror in Egypt on Thursday, exploding a powerful car bomb that narrowly missed Prime Minister Atef Sedki and blasted a nearby school, killing a young girl and injuring at least nine others. Sedki, whose armored car escaped the explosion by only seconds, was the third senior Egyptian official targeted in recent months in a wave of fundamentalist attacks.

The death toll from a terrorist bombing in a crowded suburban square rose to seven Saturday. Among those killed by the nail-packed bomb late Friday were a 13-year-old boy and an elderly woman. Eighteen people were reported wounded. No one claimed responsibility for the bombing, the third to cause death and injury in Cairo in a month. Police have blamed the blasts on Muslim radicals.

A car bomb sprayed glass and nail-size shards over a downtown district Friday, killing four people and injuring 16 in an attack suspected to be the work of Islamic extremists. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but it was almost certainly carried out by extremists seeking to replace Egypt's secular government with an Iranian-style theocracy. Militants have targeted police officers, Coptic Christians and foreign tourists.

Egyptian Interior Minister Zaki Badr survived an apparent attempt on his life Saturday when a truck carrying explosives blew up near his motorcade in central Cairo, sources said. Badr, who has cracked down on Islamic militants under emergency laws enabling people to be detained without trial, was traveling on a route he uses every day, the sources said. The truck exploded about 30 yards from his vehicle Saturday morning. No one was hurt.

Hundreds of tourists poured into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, undeterred by a fire-bomb attack that killed nine Germans and their driver and raised doubts about the success of the government's crackdown against Islamic rebels. The government moved quickly after the assault to reaffirm that Egypt was safe for tourism, saying the attack on a tourist bus in the museum's parking lot was a "random criminal act."

Armed men shouting "God is greater!" firebombed and shot into a crowded tour bus in the heart of this city Thursday, setting off a conflagration and gun battle that killed nine German tourists and their Egyptian driver. It was the worst assault on tourists in Cairo in 17 months.

Islamic militants escalated their campaign of terror in Egypt on Thursday, exploding a powerful car bomb that narrowly missed Prime Minister Atef Sedki and blasted a nearby school, killing a young girl and injuring at least nine others. Sedki, whose armored car escaped the explosion by only seconds, was the third senior Egyptian official targeted in recent months in a wave of fundamentalist attacks.

The death toll from a terrorist bombing in a crowded suburban square rose to seven Saturday. Among those killed by the nail-packed bomb late Friday were a 13-year-old boy and an elderly woman. Eighteen people were reported wounded. No one claimed responsibility for the bombing, the third to cause death and injury in Cairo in a month. Police have blamed the blasts on Muslim radicals.

An explosion rocked a crowded square in the northern Cairo suburb of Shubra, killing at least three people and wounding 18, police said. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but the attack was similar to other bombings in the Cairo area that have killed at least nine people in the past four months. Authorities have blamed the blasts on Muslim extremists who want to turn Egypt into an Islamic theocracy.

A car bomb sprayed glass and nail-size shards over a downtown district Friday, killing four people and injuring 16 in an attack suspected to be the work of Islamic extremists. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but it was almost certainly carried out by extremists seeking to replace Egypt's secular government with an Iranian-style theocracy. Militants have targeted police officers, Coptic Christians and foreign tourists.

Under a steady cold rain, members of the region's Coptic Christian Egyptian community demonstrated in Westwood on Sunday in the wake of a New Year's Day church bombing in Egypt that killed 25 and injured dozens more. Carrying crucifixes, pictures of Jesus and handmade signs that drooped in the rain, the demonstrators gathered in front of the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard and called on U.S. officials to pressure the Egyptian government to provide security for that country's Christian minority.

Egyptian Interior Minister Zaki Badr survived an apparent attempt on his life Saturday when a truck carrying explosives blew up near his motorcade in central Cairo, sources said. Badr, who has cracked down on Islamic militants under emergency laws enabling people to be detained without trial, was traveling on a route he uses every day, the sources said. The truck exploded about 30 yards from his vehicle Saturday morning. No one was hurt.