CITY OF PEACE. At least that was what Egyptians had always called Sharm El-Sheikh until a few short days ago. Today, the seaside resort that has served for more than a decade as one of Egypt’s top tourist destinations, a second capital and host to countless international peace conferences, stands in shock after being rocked by a triple bombing in the early hours of July 23rd.

The first blast shattered the early-morning calm at around 1:15 a.m. on Revolution Day when a suicide bomber crashed a car laden with explosives into the reception area of the Ghazala Gardens Hotel in Naama Bay. Shortly after, another car bomb went off in the Old Market area, followed barely three minutes later by a third bomb that had been planted in a suitcase in the parking area near the hotel.

While hospital officials initially put the death toll as high as 92, Minister of Health Mohamed Awad Tagedin later said the blasts had killed 64 and injured at least 124. At press time, more than a dozen foreign nationals remained missing and at least 30 bodies had been positively identified, including those of 23 Egyptians and seven foreigners, according to the minister. At least 44 of the victims of the deadliest terror attack in the nation’s history are believed to have been Egyptian.

Interior Ministry investigators have identified one of the bodies found at the Ghazala Hotel using DNA tests as Youssef Badran, a Sinai resident alleged to have had ties to Islamic militants, prompting speculation that he carried out the attack on the hotel.

Three militant groups claimed responsibility, including one calling itself the Abdullah Azzam Brigades of Al-Qaeda in the Levant and Egypt. The same group had previously claimed to be behind a triple bombing of tourist hotspots popular with Israelis in Taba and Nuweiba last October that killed 34 people, including 13 Egyptians and 10 Israelis. Investigators believe the Taba bombers specifically targeted Israeli nationals; the suspected mastermind was a Palestinian who died in the attack.

Interior Minister Habib El-Adly said it was too early to determine who was behind the Sharm attacks, saying the investigation was ongoing.

At the scene of last month’s carnage, El-Adly told reporters that the bombings could be connected with those that rocked Taba last year. The day after the assault, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told cabinet members gathered for an emergency session it had clearly been designed to damage the Egyptian economy.

Early in its investigation, the Interior Ministry released photos of six Pakistanis wanted for questioning in connection with the attacks. The six were alleged to have disappeared soon after they arrived in Cairo on July 5th. Al-Ahram daily later quoted Gen. Mohamed Shaarawy, a senior deputy of El-Adly’s, as saying the six had been cleared.

The blasts occurred ahead of the trial of three men charged with involvement in last year’s Taba bombings. Two of the men appeared last month in the Supreme State Security Court in Ismailia; the third suspect, Mohamed Ahmed Saleh Felifel, is still at large. Investigators believe the latter may be connected with Sharm El-Sheikh bombings; the trial has been postponed to August 14th.

Montasser El-Zayat, a lawyer for Islamist groups and former member of Al-Jamaat Al-Islamiyya, says the perpetrators of the attacks must have been inspired by Al-Qaeda, but he says it’s unlikely they had a direct connection with the network led by Osama bin Laden.

“Al-Qaeda has no presence in Egypt,” El-Zayat says. “It has not managed to penetrate the organizational structure of the Islamist groups that exist in Egypt. Al-Jamaat Al-Islamiyya refused to join the alliance formed by bin Laden and Ayman El-Zawahri Also, Al-Jihad, which is considered the primary offshoot of Al-Qaeda, protested Dr. El-Zawahri’s views.”

El-Zawahri, the number-two man in Al-Qaeda, was appointed leader of Al-Jihad’s armed wing in 1993. Five years later, he broke away to join “the World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders,” as bin Laden refers to his group.

Although the victims of the Sharm attacks were predominantly Egyptian, El-Zayat believes the bombers targeted Westerners, saying, “If perpetrators wanted to address the state, they would have targeted officials, officers and soldiers.” They were likely motivated, he adds, by fury at American and Israeli policies in the region.

Sinai Bedouins are the most likely suspect. “The chance of [successfully] sending foreign elements through natural barriers [like those in Sinai] is slim given the tight security measures there. It would be difficult for perpetrators from outside Sinai to enter Sinai and sneak in explosives from outside the peninsula,” says El-Zayat.

Egypt was rocked by terror attacks, most perpetrated by Al-Jamaat Al-Islamiyya and Al-Jihad, targeting top state officials and tourists over the course of the 1990s. The former declared an unconditional ceasefire in 1997, after which its top leaders — almost all of them arrested in the wake of the 1997 Luxor attacks — renounced violence and began to revisit the group’s ideology.

Starting in 2002, security officials allowed Al-Jamaat’s jailed leaders to tour prisons and preach non-violence to their followers behind bars. Thousands of reformed militants were ultimately released.

The Interior Ministry broke the back of Al-Jihad after it seized a computer on which the group had saved its membership rolls —the type of intelligence coup of which every service dreams.

Ahmed Thabet, a professor of Political Science at Cairo University and specialist in Islamist militarism, agrees with El-Zayat that the perpetrators of the Sharm blasts were likely inspired by Al-Qaeda. “In light of scarcity of information, there might be some cells of young men who belong to the third generation of extremist groups and work with no central command. These cells may not be interconnected,” says Thabet “It is most likely that they were influenced by the extremist and terrorist thinking Ayman El-Zawahri outlines in his book Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner [which] states that Muslims who do not join in the Islamic revolution must be punished.”

Noting similarities in methodology, Thabet also backs Interior Ministry El-Adly’s suggestion that there could be a link between the Taba and Sharm attacks.

Diaa Rashwan, an expert on radical Islamist groups with Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, rules out any connection between the ‘well-planned’ Sharm operation and the three attacks that hit Cairo in the last couple of months, causing relatively little damage.

“Those operations were minor and limited. They were carried out by amateurs who had no potential and lacked experience,” says Rashwan.

As to what might be motivating the attacks that have rocked European and Arab nations alike over the last year? Look no further than Iraq, says Rashwan. “Bush said it [the “war on terror”] is World War Three. His enemy perceives that war the same way; each party hits his enemy wherever he can.”

According to Gamal Mazloum, an analyst at the private Al-Khaleej Center for Strategic Studies and former head of the Egyptian Armed Forces’ Center for Strategic Studies, the Sinai’s geography helped the bombers pull off the Sharm attacks.

“Conditions in Sinai make it easier to accomplish such an operation,” says Mazloum. “Sinai extends over a large area with a slim population, so you have large areas that are not populated at all there are numerous mountains and caves, which makes it easy to stash explosives. Also, Sinai has a very long coastline, making smuggling by sea an option.”

He acknowledges that perpetrators chose the right time to set off their bombs. “The attacks happened in the earliest hours of the morning on a holiday long weekend,” Mazloum notes.

But Mazloum isn’t as certain as El-Zayat is that the attacks targeted foreigners.

“They definitely targeted Egyptians in the first place. Perpetrators chose three spots with high concentrations of Egyptians. The market is mostly frequented by Egyptians. Very few foreigners visit the market. As for the hotel, it is a four not a five-star, so it is mostly occupied by Egyptians,” says Mazloum.

But regardless of who carried off the attacks and why, Mazloum says, it’s imperative that the government formulate a comprehensive anti-terror strategy that includes meaningful political and economic reforms.

“People should be loyal to their country [but] we must solve the problems of those who are angry at the ruling regime.” et