A militant Islamist group has warned tourists to leave Egypt, threatening to attack anyone who stays in the country after Feb. 20.
The development raises the prospect of a new front in a fast-growing insurgency as visitors are down to a trickle since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed Morsi, triggering a bloody political crisis.
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.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has said in the past that it does not post statements on social media sites.
“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.
But statements that appeared on the Twitter account in the past have afterwards surfaced on jihadi Websites the group does say it uses.
In one of the boldest attacks claimed by Ansar, a car bomb killed 16 people at security headquarters in the city of Mansoura on Dec. 24.
The attack was claimed on the same Twitter account before jihadi sites carried the official statement.
“Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis poses the most formidable security threat in current-day Egypt,’’ said Anthony Skinner, Middle East and North Africa director at risk analyst Maplecroft.
“This is not only reflected in the attack on the tourist bus in Taba last weekend, but also in the series of bombings in the Nile Valley and Nile Delta regions.’’
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.
The development raises the prospect of a new front in a fast-growing insurgency as visitors are down to a trickle since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed Morsi, triggering a bloody political crisis.
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.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has said in the past that it does not post statements on social media sites.
“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.
But statements that appeared on the Twitter account in the past have afterwards surfaced on jihadi Websites the group does say it uses.
In one of the boldest attacks claimed by Ansar, a car bomb killed 16 people at security headquarters in the city of Mansoura on Dec. 24.
The attack was claimed on the same Twitter account before jihadi sites carried the official statement.
“Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis poses the most formidable security threat in current-day Egypt,’’ said Anthony Skinner, Middle East and North Africa director at risk analyst Maplecroft.
“This is not only reflected in the attack on the tourist bus in Taba last weekend, but also in the series of bombings in the Nile Valley and Nile Delta regions.’’
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.
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