Bomber Attacks Tourists In Cairo; 2 Dead, 18 Injured
CAIRO -- A blast apparently set off by a bomber on a motorcycle hit a tour group in a historic bazaar Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding 18 -- the first attack targeting foreign tourists in the Egyptian capital in more than seven years.
The dead included a French woman. Four Americans were among the 18 wounded, the Interior Ministry said. Brig. Gen. Nabil Azabi, head of security in Cairo, said the other person killed may have been the bomber.
Many of the wounded had severe injuries from nails packed in the bomb, doctors said. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo warned Americans to stay away from Khan al-Khalili, the sprawling bazaar area, and to use prudence elsewhere in the city, said the embassy spokesman, James L. Bullock. He would not confirm American casualties in the blast.
Egypt has seen a long period of calm since it suppressed Islamic militants who in the 1990s carried out bombings and shootings against tourists.
ASIA
• DEH KHODA-E-DAD, Afghanistan -- U.S. soldiers examined the wreckage of a military helicopter that plunged into the Afghan desert Wednesday, killing at least 16 people in the deadliest incident for Americans here since 2001. Thirteen U.S. service members and three civilian contractors, whose nationalities were not released, were killed in the crash. Two soldiers were missing. The helicopter went down near Ghazni, 80 miles southwest of Kabul.
AFRICA
• HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Fresh fuel and food shortages have hit Zimbabwe less than a week after President Robert Mugabe's ruling party won disputed elections. The shortages are stoking fears that the country will miss its inflation and growth targets, hobbling the recovery of an economy that has been in a deep slump for five years.
• KIGALI, Rwanda -- Rwandans reburied more than 20,000 victims of the 1994 genocide who had been dumped in mass graves, as the country marked the 11th anniversary of the massacre. The reburials were meant to restore dignity to the victims of the genocide, in which more than half a million died.
the middle east
• JERUSALEM -- Israel will ban non-Muslims from a Jerusalem shrine Sunday amid fears that Jewish militants could provoke bloodshed aimed at stalling Israel's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip. Police have tightened security at the site, revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as Temple Mount, to keep out Jewish ultra-nationalists who have vowed to hold a rally there.
Meanwhile, Palestinian gunmen fired a rocket into Israel in the first such incident since January, when militants accepted a cease-fire. There were no reports of casualties in the assault from northern Gaza.
EUROPE
• LONDON -- British police said they are investigating a claim by the Sun newspaper that one of its reporters breached security at Windsor Castle, where the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles will be blessed this weekend.
-- From News Services
