{"id":13430,"date":"2018-12-29T09:16:23","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T14:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=13430"},"modified":"2018-12-29T09:16:23","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T14:16:23","slug":"egypt-police-kill-40-militants-in-raids-after-tourist-bus-blast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/12\/29\/egypt-police-kill-40-militants-in-raids-after-tourist-bus-blast\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt police &#8216;kill 40 militants&#8217; in raids after tourist bus blast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Police in Egypt have killed dozens of militants during security raids on their hideouts, the interior ministry has said.<\/p>\n<p>The raids killed &#8220;40 terrorists&#8221; in Giza and North Sinai on Saturday morning, according to a statement from the ministry.<\/p>\n<p>It said the militants were planning a series of attacks on tourist sites, churches and military personnel.<\/p>\n<p>The raids followed Friday&#8217;s\u00a0<a class=\"story-body__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-middle-east-46702301\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">roadside bomb attack on a tour bus in Giza<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>No group has yet said it was behind the blast, which killed three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian tour guide, but Islamist militants have targeted tourists in Egypt in the past.<\/p>\n<p>Police killed 30 militants during two early morning raids in Giza, while the remaining 10 were killed in El-Arish, the capital of North Sinai province, the interior ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A group of terrorists were planning to carry out a series of aggressive attacks targeting state institutions, particularly economic ones, as well as tourism&#8230; and Christian places of worship,&#8221; the ministry statement said.<\/p>\n<p>It added that police had seized bomb-making materials, ammunition and a large number of weapons during the raids.<\/p>\n<p>Security is already tight in Egypt, with the tourist season at its height and the country&#8217;s main Christian minority, the Copts, preparing to celebrate Orthodox Christmas on 7 January.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">What do we know of Friday&#8217;s attack?<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/7B14\/production\/_104980513_bbcmap_egypt_cairo_giza.png\" alt=\"Map showing Egypt with Cairo, Giza and North Sinai marked\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The roadside bomb went off at about 18:15 (16:45 GMT) on Maryoutiya Street in Giza&#8217;s Haram district as the bus carrying 14 Vietnamese tourists was passing, according to official accounts.<\/p>\n<p>Four people were killed and eleven others were injured in the incident, which is the first affecting foreign tourists in Egypt in more than a year.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly has said the bus deviated from its planned route without alerting security forces, although the driver has denied this.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">How has tourism fared in Egypt in recent years?<\/h2>\n<p>Tourism is a mainstay of Egypt&#8217;s economy.<\/p>\n<p>It peaked in 2010, when the country saw more than 14 million visitors, but fell sharply after the turmoil of the Arab Spring the following year.<\/p>\n<p>Worse was to come after\u00a0<a class=\"story-body__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-middle-east-34687990\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">militants bombed a Russian passenger jet in 2015<\/a>\u00a0as it left Sharm el Sheikh, killing 224 people.<\/p>\n<p>The following year just 5.3 million tourists visited, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n<p>However, the sector has since recovered and 8.3 million people visited in 2017, the Financial Times reports.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-middle-east-46708695\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Police in Egypt have killed dozens of militants during security raids on their hideouts, the interior ministry has said. The raids killed &#8220;40 terrorists&#8221; in Giza and North Sinai on Saturday morning, according to a <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/12\/29\/egypt-police-kill-40-militants-in-raids-after-tourist-bus-blast\/\" title=\"Egypt police &#8216;kill 40 militants&#8217; in raids after tourist bus blast\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[3373,1196,697,5829,1041],"class_list":{"0":"post-13430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world","9":"tag-bomb-attack","10":"tag-counter-terrorism","11":"tag-egypt","12":"tag-giza","13":"tag-vietnam","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13432,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13430\/revisions\/13432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}