A SERIES of blasts rocked three popular tourist resorts on the Red Sea coast of Egypt last night, killing at least 30 people and injuring more than 100.

The first explosion, which Israeli officials suspected was caused by a car bomb, ripped through the Hilton Hotel in Taba, minutes’ walk from the border with Israel. Part of the building collapsed.

Later there were reports of two other blasts at the nearby resorts Nuweiba and Raas al Sultan, lending weight to fears that the explosions were set off by Islamic militants.

Ambulances raced over the border from Eilat to rescue the wounded — including two British holidaymakers.

Israeli tourists had been advised not to travel to Egypt, as intelligence officials suspected that militants had planned attacks in the area, but thousands had defined the warning to go to Taba for a Jewish holiday.

The warning, issued by the counter-terrorism centre in the Prime Minister’s office, had identified the Sinai Peninsula, which includes Taba, as the target of a potential attack.

“Recently a concrete possibility has emerged that terrorists will try to attack tourist centers in Egypt, especially the Sinai,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on its Web site.

Witnesses said that the blast in the Taba Hilton’s lobby had caused a wall to collapse and left dozens of wounded with blood everywhere. “I heard a huge explosion,” a witness called Yigal Vakni said. “The wall near me collapsed and people began to run. There were many casualties. The explosion was outside.

“When we went out we saw the shops and the internal wall of the hotel had collapsed. Some people said it was a gas canister explosion and others said it was a terrorist attack. There are a lot of people (lying on the ground). There is a lot of blood, a lot of screaming.”

The Haaretz newspaper in Israel said the explosion happened in the hotel lobby, causing the ceiling to collapse. That was followed by a fire. At first it was thought the blast might have been caused by a gas explosion, but Israeli security sources said later that there was a growing conviction that a terrorist attack.

Egypt said later that it believed all three blasts were caused by car bombs.

Israeli security sources said they were still unsure who might have been responsible. “The multiple attacks have the hallmarks of al-Qaeda, but there could be Palestinian involvement as well,” one senior source said.

Mahmoud Saleh, an employee at the Hilton, said he was in the storeroom when the hotel was hit. “I saw some some people hurt and I expect there were some people killed, including Egyptians and Israelis,” he said.

The explosion could be heard and felt strongly a mile from the hotel, said Selma Abu el-Dahab, who works at another Taba hotel. She said a worker from her hotel returned from the Hilton and told of the explosion before collapsing.

The two smaller blasts came about two hours later in the area of Raas al Sultan, a camping area near the town of Nuweib, which was also full of Israeli tourists. A security official there said that many people were injured, but he did not know of any dead. “I heard one very big explosion coming from Taba direction and then, after a while, I heard two smaller explosions from Nuweiba,” Abdel Raziq, a human rights activist, said.

Taba is the main crossing between Israel and Egypt and the gateway for thousands of Israelis who travel to the Red Sea resorts. Yesterday was the last day of the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot.

TOURIST ATTRACTIONS

• The Red Sea has become a huge growth area for British tourists in Egypt, offering year-round sun and first-class diving
• Tony Blair and his family were lured there for their holidays last Christmas. They stayed at Sharm-el-Sheikh, about 200 kms from Taba.
• Five million tourists visited Egypt in 2002, about 368,00 of them British
• Egypt has suffered many terrorist incidents involving tourists in recent years, the most serious being the Luxor massacre of 1997, in which 58 foreigners were killed by Islamic militants
• Advice on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website says: “There is a threat of terrorism in Egypt. There were a number of attacks in the early to mid-90s. But there have been none since that in Luxor in 1997. “Since then, Egypt’s police and security forces have made a considerable effort to ensure the safety and security of foreign visitors”

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