This is from an article in the current issue of NEWSWEEK.
HORROR ALONG THE NILE
Where a pharaoh walked, terrorists strike
Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's only female pharaoh, was a master of disguise. On formal occasions 3,400 years ago, she is said to have donned a beard and masqueraded as a man, much to the delight of subjects who recognized her. But last week in the ancient structure built beside the Nile to celebrate the queen's reign, a band of men in masquerade delivered 45 minutes of horror. In a frenzy of shooting, stabbing, and throat-slashing, six Islamic militants wearing black uniforms and posing as police raided the Temple of Hatshepsut near Luxor and slaughtered 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians before the real police arrived and killed the killers.
The militants scattered leaflets from the outlawed Gamaa Islamiya (Islamic Group), which wants to replace Egypt's secular government with an Islamic regime. A statement from the Gamaa's underground leaders claimed its members had intended to seize hostages and demand that America free Omar Abdel Rahman, a sheik serving life in prison for plotting to blow up New York's World Trade Center.
Yet witnesses say the six militants never made any attempt to take hostages. Instead they began killing people immediately. Many of the tourists tried to hide behind massive sandstone pillars. The killers hunted them down, shot them, and finished off the not yet dead with knives.
Desperation Three days after the carnage, another statement from the Gamaa offered the Egyptian government a truce--while a second Islamic group vowed to carry out more attacks on tourists. According to Diaa Rashwan, a researcher at Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, the extremists do not speak with a clear voice because Egypt's security services have succeeded in arresting most of their leaders, and they are now fragmented into small, isolated groups often bitterly at odds with one another. "The violence in Luxor was an act of desperation and suicide," Rashwan says. "I do not think it will be repeated."
Many travelers may be unwilling to take the chance. Seven planeloads of British tourists returned home immediately. Coming just two months after a firebombing killed nine German tourists in Cairo, the Luxor massacre is likely to cut deeply into Egypt's vital $3 billion tourism industry. Assailing the police for leaving the site virtually unguarded, President Hosni Mubarak sacked 20 of the country's top law enforcement officials.
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