Three explosions shook three Egyptian Sinai resorts popular with vacationing Israelis on Thursday night. Israeli officials said they believed the blasts were caused by the Al Qaeda.There were conflicting reports on the number of casualties. Egypt said at least 30 people were killed, including 12 Egyptians. But an Israeli official later said he could confirm only 14 or 15 dead, including five or six Israelis. Earlier, Israel Radio had reported that at least 35 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.In the largest explosion, early reports suggested that a truck bomb may have been driven into the Taba Hilton, a large concrete resort hotel in a little village just across the Israeli border and near the Israeli resort town of Eilat. The Hilton was badly damaged by the blast and an ensuing fire, and 10 floors in part of the complex collapsed. There were reports of people buried in the rubble.The two other explosions took place to the southwest, in the resort villages of Ras Al-Sultan and Nuweiba. At least seven people died at Ras Al-Sultan, most of them Egyptian workers. No definitive claims of responsibility were publicized, though AFP reported that someone claiming to be from a previously unknown group, Jamaa Al-Islamiya Al-Alamiya, or World Islamist Group, had taken responsibility for the Hilton blast in a telephone call to its bureau in Jerusalem. The caller said the attack was ‘‘in revenge for the Palestinian and Arab martyrs dying in Palestine and Iraq.’’The warning about possible attacks came in an unusual public alert from Avi Dichter, the head of the Shin Bet intelligence service, not to go to Sinai resorts during the harvest festival season of Sukkot, when Israel shuts down. He said there was vague but solid intelligence about a possible attack in Egypt’s Sinai, where as many as 12,000 Israelis were travelling for the holidays. In November 2002, attackers drove a car bomb into a resort hotel popular with Israelis in Mombasa, Kenya, killing 12.
