Egypt militants warn tourists to leave or face attack

CAIRO - Reuters

Egyptian policeman stands guard next to wreckage of a bus that was targeted the day before by a bomb in the Egyptian south Sinai resort town of Taba on February 17, 2014. AFP Photo

A militant Islamist militant group has warned tourists to leave Egypt and threatened to attack any who stay in the country after Feb. 20, raising the prospect of a new front in a fast-growing insurgency.
   
The Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed two South Korean tourists and an Egyptian on Sunday, made the statement on an affiliated Twitter account.
   
"We recommend tourists to get out safely before the expiry of the deadline," read the tweet, written in English.
   
The warning has not appeared on jihadi websites but the Twitter account has been accurate in the past.
  
Islamist militants have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the army deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July, but Sunday's attack on a tourist bus marks a strategic shift to soft targets that could devastate an economy already reeling from political turmoil.
   
"What Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has announced, threatening to target tourists in the coming period, puts new challenges in front of the Egyptian security apparatus and the state in general," said Interior Ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif.
   
He said these incidents had both domestic and international ramifications.
    
Tourists scared
   
The uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011 scared off many tourists, dealing a major blow to an industry that was a major employer and accounted for more than 10 percent of gross domestic product before the anti-Mubarak revolt.
   
Visitors are down to a trickle since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed Mursi, triggering a bloody political crisis.
   
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Egypt's most active Islamist militant organisation, has threatened to topple the interim government installed by Sisi.
  
Ansar enjoys tacit support from at least some of the marginalized Bedouin community and smugglers in the Sinai. This has enabled them to survive several army offensives in the largely lawless peninsula.
   
While security forces have crushed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has become more brazen.
   
The group has extended its reach beyond the Sinai to cities including Cairo, where they claimed responsibility for an assassination attempt on the interior minister.
   
The latest tweet referred to a warning first issued on Feb. 16 on the same Twitter account urging tourists to leave.
   
"This statement, if genuine, would add tourism quite explicitly to the target set already outlined by Ansar, which includes security forces and economic interests of the state and the army," said Anna Boyd, an analyst at London-based IHS Jane's.
   
An army source told Reuters that the latest militant attacks were a reaction to a military offensive which was hurting militants. "They are breathing their last breath," he said.