Dahab suicide bombers were reportedly funded and trained in Gaza.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFdahab blast 298.88(photo credit: Associated Press)
Authorities said Tuesday that two Palestinians had helped fund and train members of an Egyptian terrorist group blamed for bombings in Sinai.
An Interior Ministry statement said that a Palestinian it named as only Abu Suleiman provided the Egyptian group with money. Another Palestinian, identified by the statement as Maged al-Deri, trained members of the group in the use of explosives and firearms in the Gaza Strip.
The statement described Abu Suleiman and al-Deri as Muslim extremists, but did not elaborate. A third Palestinian, Tamer al-Nasserat, was planning to come to Egypt to carry out attacks, it said.
It was the first time that Egypt made such a specific link between the Sinai bombings - which killed 120 people, including foreigners, and targeted tourist sites - to militant Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
Authorities have in the past spoken vaguely of ties between the bombings, one of which claimed 11 Israeli lives, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in neighboring Gaza.
Three major attacks have rocked the Sinai Peninsula since October 2004. According to Egyptian authorities, all of them were carried out by a group calling itself Monotheism and Jihad, led by Nasser Khamis el-Mallahi.
El-Mallahi had sent the three suicide bombers who carried out bombings in Dahab last month for training in Gaza.
