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Group claims bombing of tourist bus in Egypt

The bombing on Sunday, near the Taba border crossing with Israel, was the first targeting tourists since the military overthrow of president Mohammed Mursi.

Foreign tourists wait to cross from the Israeli side of the Taba crossing into Egypt on February 16, 2014, after a bomb targeted a tourist bus in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.-AFP

The militant group Ansar Bayt al Maqdis has told tourists to leave Egypt and threatened to attack anyone who stays in the country after a deadline of February 20.

The Sinai-based 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.

The warning has not appeared on the group’s official website but the Twitter account has been accurate in the past.

Attacks by militants have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the army deposed former president Mohammed Mursi in July, but the bombing on Sunday of a tourist bus marks a strategic shift to soft targets that could devastate an economy already reeling from political turmoil.

Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, Egypt’s most active militant organisation, has threatened to topple the interim government installed by army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al Sisi.

The group’s statement referred to a warning first issued on February 16 urging tourists to leave.