Egypt pursues two Palestinian militants in northern Sinai

Hundreds of state-security forces and military intelligence personnel launched a search in Egypt's northern Sinai peninsula Thursday looking for two Palestinians believed to be plotting suicide attacks on tourist sites, officials said.

The search began a day after 23 Palestinians and Egyptians were arrested and confessed to plotting a series of attacks against tourists, mainly Israelis in southern Sinai resorts.

Among those arrested was a young Palestinian, wearing an explosives belt, who had entered Egypt illegally at Rafah through an underground tunnel from the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of state security forces and intelligence were deployed to Rafah, El-Arish and several other northern Sinai towns in search of two additional Palestinians, believed to be suicide bombers, according to a state security official speaking on condition of anonymity, because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Another intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the two are carrying belts of explosives and that they are plotting an attack in the southern Sinai.

The two are believed to have rented cars to head south, the intelligence official added.

Bombers have attacked south Sinai resorts three times in the past two and half years and the Egyptian police have attributed the attacks to a group of Islamists who are from the Sinai Bedouin community and sympathetic toward the Palestinians.

In October 2004, more than 30 people, including 11 Israelis, were killed in an attack in the Sinai resort town of Taba. Less than a year later, in July 2005, at least 70 people were killed in three blasts in Sharm el-Sheikh, the southernmost point of the Sinai Peninsula.

The sources named the two accomplices as Hisham Abu al-Walid and Emad Abu al-Qassam. They did not give the name of the man caught wearing the suicide belt.

Israelis have continued to visit the southern Sinai resorts, but Jerusalem has repeatedly issued warnings that an attack targeting them could be in the works.

Earlier Wednesday, Egyptian police found 240 old anti-tank mines and six artillery shells stashed in the mountains of central Sinai, a police source said.

The police suspect the owners planned to empty out the ordnance, left over from 20th century wars, and smuggle the explosive material to Palestinian groups in the neighboring Gaza Strip, added the source, who asked not to be named.

No one was present when police arrived and no arrests have been made, he added.

Israel frequently complains about arms smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border. Egypt says it does its best to stop it.

Last week, Egyptian police found boxes with around 18,000 bullets hidden in a tunnel near the border with the Palestinian territories.

Earlier in the month they found rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades hidden in the sand on the same border.