The ISIS terrorist organization has executed terrorist attacks on tourists and hotel facilities this week, and claimed responsibility for killing two Egyptian authorities on Saturday, January 9. The ISIS terrorist attacks have both involved the Egyptian Giza area, which seems to be a place where ISIS terrorists are gaining recruits for their criminal activity.
On Thursday, January 7, 2016, ISIS terrorists took responsibility for an attack at the Three Pyramids Hotel, where a group of Israeli Arab tourists were preparing to board a bus. The hotel was near the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo. The ISIS terrorists group released a statement via the Amaq news agency claiming it was a response to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s call to target Jewish people “everywhere.”
ISIS Attack on Egyptian Three Pyramids Hotel Targeting Israeli Tourists on January 7
On January 8, 2016, the SITE Intelligence Group reported that it had obtained ISIS social media postings claiming responsibility for the Three Pyramids Hotel attack.
Screenshot of SITE Intelligence Report on ISIS Terrorist Group Claim of Attack on Three Pyramids Hotel (Source: SITE Intelligence Group)
On Friday, January 8, 2016, a separate violent attack occurred in Egypt’s Red Sea resort town of Hurghada, at the Bella Vista Hotel in Hurghada, wounding three foreign tourists, two Austrians and a Swede. International news media had reported that the violence was part of an “ISIS” attack. However, the Bella Vista Hotel and local individuals state that such news reports are misinformation and that the violence in Hurghada, was not part of an ISIS attack, but was actually the work of “drugged young men.” The Bella Vista Hotel states the news reports of an ISIS attack are “nonsense and crap”, and that it “[m]ost probably is to make propaganda that will affect the tourism in Egypt badly, and that was the main aim.” If other local individuals have reports to add to this, please email R.E.A.L., with your on-site information.
The criminals used knives to injure the tourists.
Criminals Attack Tourists at Bella Vista Hotel in Hurghada
The Independent reported that: “Renata and Wilhelm Weisslein, both 72, and Sammie Olovsson, 27, were not seriously wounded and are in a stable condition.” Reportedly, the criminal held a knife to a woman’s throat, and injured her, but she survived the attack. One of the attackers was shot. Sammie Olovsson, from Gothenburg, wrote a Facebook status reassuring friends that although he had been stabbed four times, he was recovering and expected to leave hospital on Saturday. “Lucky that I could avert some fatal stab wound to the chest, he tried to instead stick a knife in my neck a couple times, but it was just cut to the muscles, no arteries or nerves. Was bloody lucky. Can leave the hospital tomorrow.”
Swedish Sammie Olovsson’s Facebook Report on his attack
The Egyptian Interior Ministry had said that one of the attackers was a student from Giza.
The Bella Vista Hotel provided a report on Facebook, which states the attack in Hurghada, was the activities of drugged young men.
Bella Vista Hotel’s Report on the Attack in Hurghada (Source: Facebook)
On Saturday, January 9, 2016, the ISIS terrorist group took responsibility for the murder of two Egyptians Ali Ahmed Fahmy and Ramadan al-Burhami, who were killed as they were on their way to work in Giza’s Shabramant district, according to a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior. Egpytian officials state that police shot two attackers, killing one and wounding another. The ministry identified the slain attacker as 21-year-old Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Mahfouz, a student from Giza. Reuters reported that the ISIS terrorist group claimed the terrorist attack using the messaging service Telegram. The reports stated that one of the individuals was a “Colonel” and another a police officer, which has led to different news media reporting as killing of two police and other reports stating it was the killing of one police officer and one soldier.
Egypt – Government Web Site on Terrorist Killings of Government Officials by ISIS Terrorist Group (Source Facebook)
On Janaury 9, 2016, Reuters also reported: “Egypt is fighting a wave of Islamist militancy against security forces which started in the remote regions of the Sinai, but is increasingly spreading closer to the capital and focusing on targets previously considered safe such tourist resorts on the Red Sea.”
R.E.A.L. recognizes that people of Egypt have gone through traumatic years, and have faced turbulent times. After the tyranny of Mubarak and many other social upheavals, the Egyptian people understandably have no interest in reports of extremist groups such as the ISIS terrorist group taking responsibility for violence in Egypt. However, extremists give no quarter, no understanding, no patience to any nation, whether it Egypt, the United States of America, or anywhere in the world. Our consistent defiance against the ideologies of extremist views is essential in the protection of our shared universal human rights.
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Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) stands in support of our universal human rights for all, and we stand in defiance against those, including terrorist and hate groups, which seek to attack such universal human rights, dignity, and security for all.
We cannot support human rights, if we also do not reject those who seek to rob our brothers and sisters in humanity of their lives and security, which are also our universal human rights.