On 22 July 2005 at 01:15, three bombers executed assaults and were killed in the course of their attacks on Sharm el-Sheikh’s Ghazala Gardens Hotel, a nearby car park, and a busy market area.
With respect to the attack on the hotel, two militants drove a white pickup truck to Naama Bay. One got out along the way in a car park near the Ghazala
Gardens Hotel where he planted a small explosive device in a suitcase, rigged with a timer. Meanwhile the other militant drove the truck, with an estimated 300 kg of explosives, into the front driveway of the Ghazala Gardens Hotel where it exploded.
The second device, which was planted in the suitcase in the car park, explod-ed as people flexplod-ed the first attack, killing at least seven people. This second attack is a clear example of a multi device trap as described in Chapter 2. Expecting that people would flee from the first attack to an open area, this second device was planted in the nearby car park, where it was timed to detonate to coincide with the likely arrival of those people fleeing the first attack, in order to cause maximum casualties. Although this second device achieved its objective, there would have been even more casualties had a suicide bomber – as a ‘thinking’
bomb – detonated the device at the most deadly moment. By relying upon a timer instead of using a person or even a remote-controlled device, those planning the attack had no real control over when to detonate the secondary or trap device to maximum effect.
In the second series of attacks, a car bomb exploded in a parking area near the Mövenpick Hotel. In the third explosion in a car park in the Old Market, about 4 km away from the Ghazala Gardens Hotel and the Mövenpick Hotel, a further 17 people were killed. During this latter attack, two militants had abandoned a green Isuzu pickup truck packed with explosives that was detonated by a timer.64
According to governmental officials, a total of 67 people were killed, cluding 16 foreigners, and an estimated 110 were wounded. The casualties in-cluded British, Russian, Dutch, Kuwaiti, Saudi, Qatari, and Egyptian nationals.65 Certainly, the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings demonstrated an escalation from the Taba bombings in terms of their scale and impact.
Profile of the attackers
The three suicide bombers involved in the attacks on 22 July 2005 were identified as Mahmoud Mohammed Hammad, Mohammed Awdah Said and Yusef Badran (also suspected of involvement in the Taba bombings on 7 October 2004), and had been recruited by Moussa Ghoneim (also known as Moussa Badran).66 Those re-sponsible for the attacks came from El Arish, just 56 km from Rafa, which hosts a large Palestinian community who fled the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of conflict between Israel and Hamas.67
After the mass arrests of approximately 3 000 Bedouin community members in the Sinai and their subsequent interrogation, Egyptian security service identi-fied the following individuals as providing the leadership and logistical support for the Sharm el-Sheikh attack:
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■ Muhammad Ahmed Flayfil, a Bedouin from the Tarabeem tribe located in north-east Sinai: The younger brother of Suleiman Ahmed Saleh Flayfil, who was killed in the Taba attacks, he had been involved in extremist activities since 1995. Both Suleiman and Muhammad Flayfil were associated with Ayad Said Salah, a Palestinian Hamas supporter from El-Arish and the ringleader of the Taba attack. During the Taba attacks, Muhammad had detonated the Ras al-Shitan car bomb and managed to flee the scene. With both Suleiman Flayfil and Ayad Said Salah killed in the Taba attacks, Muhammad had formed a new terror cell among the Bedouin Tarabeen tribe, which was eventually found to have been responsible for the Sharm el-Sheikh attacks. One week after the bombings, Egyptian police killed him together with his wife in the Ataqaa Mountains, west of the Suez Canal.68
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■ Moussa Mohamed Salem Badran: A known extremist, he was arrested and harshly interrogated by the Egyptian security service, primarily because his younger brother, Yousef Badran, was a close associate of Muhammad Ahmed Flayfil, the prime suspect in the Taba attacks. After he was released – a few months later without being charged – he fled his family home and joined the group led by Muhammad Ahmed Flayfil in the mountains of central Sinai from where the Sharm el-Sheikh attacks were planned. On his way to meet Dr Khaled Musaid Salem and Tilib Murdi Soliman, Badran was shot and killed by security forces near Jabel Halal, approximately 60 km south-east of El-Arish.69
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■ Dr Khaled Musaid Salem from Ismailia: He was already a suspect following the attacks in Taba. However, only after the Sharm el-Sheikh bombing did the Egyptian security service discover that Salem was also the cell leader responsi-ble for the attack on the Hilton Hotel in Taba. On 28 September 2005, Salem and Tilib Murdi Soliman were fatally wounded in a shootout with Egyptian police on their way to meet Moussa Badran near Jabel Halal about 60 km south-east of El-Arish. Yunis Mohammed Alian, a third suspect in the vehicle mentioned above, was arrested. Police found ammunition, an explosive device, timer, false number plates, a video camera, and a tape-recorded message before the Sharm el-Sheikh attacks in which members of the group explained their roles. It also
showed how a different suicide operation, the al-Jora bombing on 15 August 2005 that had damaged a multi-national Canadian observer force vehicle, had been carried out.70
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■ Tilib Murdi Soliman, from the El-Arish region: He was considered to be the mas-termind of the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, together with Salem. He was also affiliated to the cell that executed the attacks in Taba. Operationally, Soliman was an explosives expert, trained by Mohamed Sabbah Hussein on how to build electric detonators and assemble improvised explosive devices. Through his connections with the Bedouin tribes in the area, he managed to collect explo-sives from unexploded military ordinances left from the wars between Israel and Egypt. Through his expertise, Soliman supervised the assembling of the car bombs and built the detonators used in the Sharm el-Sheikh bombing.71
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■ Ihab Mohamed Rabia: A Bedouin from Sheik Zawaid, El-Arish region, he was a close associate of Salem and was often seen with Badran.
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■ Osama al-Nakhlawi, from El-Arish: He worked as an electrics repairman.
According to security officials he assisted in the assembly of the car bomb used in the Taba and Sharm el-Sheikh attacks. Al-Nakhlawi was arrested on 12 August 2005, together with many others in the El-Arish region.72
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■ Yunis Mohammed Alian: He was a car thief, also from El-Arish region in Sinai, and was affiliated to the local terror cell that committed the Taba attacks. After being arrested following a shootout together with Salem and Soliman, Alian was put on trial for his role in the Sharm el-Sheikh attacks. According to inves-tigations, Alian was responsible for getting the two vehicles used in the attack.
He also confessed during interrogation that he had assisted in loading the vehi-cles with explosives. Alian was sentenced to death on 30 November 2006, along with Osama Al-Nakhlawi and Mohamed Sabbah Hussein.73
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■ Mohamed Sabbah Hussein: A former employee of the Egyptian Sinai irrigation system authority, he opened a small business repairing electrical home ap-pliances in El-Arish. Hussein was recruited by Ayad Said Salah and asked to modify electric timer detonators, which he did with washing machine timers.
On 22 October 2004, Hussein was arrested for his role in providing the timers used in the Taba attacks. Although already sentenced to death for his role in these earlier attacks, and already in prison during the subsequent Sharm el-Sheikh attacks, he was further charged with and convicted of a similar role for designing and assembling detonators used during the Sharm el-Sheikh attacks, for which he received a second death sentence.74