Egypt Probe Seeks Ties to 2004 Blasts

For years, Egypt wrestled with a resilient insurgency by Islamic militants centered in the country's poorer and long-neglected south. By the late 1990s, Egyptian officials said they had defeated the movement, although human rights groups complained of house demolitions, arbitrary arrests and torture. Thousands remain in jail from those years.

Dozens were detained after Saturday's bombings, but Serafi said they had all been released. He said there have been no arrests in Arish. The Associated Press, quoting a police official there, said DNA samples were taken from the parents of a fugitive from the Taba bombings who police suspect may have been one of those involved in Saturday's attack. Serafi said investigators had already taken DNA samples from remains left at the bomb sites.

"That's the main direction of the investigation," he said of the investigation in Arish.

Hospital officials had put the toll in Saturday's bombings at 88, most of them Egyptian. The Tourism Ministry revised that figure Sunday. Gen. Shukri Gaweesh, a ministry official, said 64 people were killed, including seven foreigners, 26 Egyptians and others who have yet to be identified. The health minister, however, said on Sunday that 63 people had died in the blasts. Doctors at Sharm el-Sheikh hospital said 114 people were wounded. Six Egyptians were still missing, Gaweesh said.

One of those killed has been identified as an American citizen, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo told the Associated Press.

The State Department on Sunday urged Americans to "exercise caution" when traveling in Egypt, and to avoid travel to the southern Sinai Peninsula or frequenting crowded tourist destinations in Cairo.

In a show of revulsion at the attacks, hotel managers in Sharm el-Sheikh helped organize a protest Sunday evening that drew hundreds of hotel employees, tourism industry workers, foreign tourists and city residents. In English and Arabic, signs read, "We are against terrorism." Over an hour's time, the crowd grew, passing before the ruins of the Ghazala Gardens. "There is no god but God, terrorism is the enemy of God," some chanted. Others shouted, "Terrorism, you coward, Egypt will return to the way it was."

Halfway through the protest, some demonstrators lit small white candles along the sidewalk in front of the Ghazala, now shrouded in a two-story white tarp that blocks the view from the street. Others set down bouquets of flowers.

The mood in the rest of Sharm el-Sheikh, though, was more subdued, as residents struggled to make sense of a calamity that cut through the city's ebullience like a scythe. Hundreds of tourists have already left, and many predicted it would take months, if not years, for the city to revive. Many workers said they planned to depart soon for their homes in Cairo and other parts of Egypt.

"You can see for yourself what it looks like," said Gamil Gidawi, a 21-year-old sitting at the Cocktail Cafe, just yards from the crater left by the first bombing. He waved his hand to the street beside him. "Everything has collapsed."

The mood in the cafe was edgy. When someone heard about an explosive device that was detonated Sunday as a man carried it several miles from a tourist bazaar in Cairo, questions were shouted out.

"Where did it happen?" one customer yelled. "When?" another asked. "Turn on al-Jazeera" television, another instructed.

Amr Mohammed, 20, who worked at a tourist bazaar in Naama Bay, grimaced. The bombings had started another era, he felt, and he expressed fear for both his city and his livelihood.

"What happened here is reality now," said Mohammed, who arrived in the resort when he was 15 and described himself as being raised here. "The city has lost its reputation. It was once the safest city in the world. Now it's no longer."

Special correspondent Nagwa Hassaan in Sharm el-Sheikh and staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.