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Palestinians aided Dahab attack

A STATEMENT issued by the Interior Ministry on Tuesday accused Palestinian extremists of helping finance and train members of a local militant group that carried out a string of bombings at Sinai tourist resorts.

In a statement, the ministry said Palestinians helped the Egyptian militant group that carried out a bomb attack last month at the Sinai resort of Dahab which killed 21 people.

It said three brothers who belong to the Egyptian group "made contacts with some fundamentalist Palestinian elements" before the attack and that two of them, Ayman and Yousri Muhareb, received training in the Palestinian territories in making explosives and the use of weapons from a Palestinian identified as Maged Al-Deri, the ministry said. Another Palestinian, identified only as Abu Suleiman, gave Yousri $1,000 and a cell phone, then later entered Egypt and gave $500 to the third brother, Mounir Muhareb.

The ministry said Yousri , who has been arrested by Egyptian security forces, confessed that he "received congratulations from these Palestinian elements after carrying out the [Dahab] attacks".

Mounir was killed in clashes on 1 May, the statement said, without giving the whereabouts of Ayman.

Egypt has said the Dahab bombing was carried out by a militant group calling itself Monotheism and Jihad which was also behind two other attacks against Sinai resorts. An October 2004 bombing in Taba killed 34 people and a July attack in Sharm El-Sheikh killed 64.

The purported leader of Monotheism and Jihad, Nasser Khamis El-Mallahi, was killed earlier this month in a gun battle with security forces.

Besides the three brothers who contacted the Palestinians, El-Mallahi had tried to send the three suicide bombers who carried out the Dahab attacks to Gaza for training, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday.

A third Palestinian, Tamer Al-Nasserat, expressed readiness to take part in attacks in Egypt. El-Mallahi planned to use Al-Nasserat's expertise in making explosives, the ministry said, without elaborating.

A spokesman for the Hamas-led Palestinian government, Ghazi Hamad, said the government was "still waiting for more details" on the Egyptian accusations. But he underlined that Hamas condemned the Dahab bombings at the time of the attack.

Judges sit-in on

JUDGES will organise today a symbolic sit-in at the headquarters of their downtown club to protest against the government's delay in endorsing judiciary law, reports Mona El-Nahhas.

The silent sit-in will be limited to members of the Judges' Club, the club decided during a meeting held late this week.

The sit-in will also mark the first anniversary of the referendum on the amendment of Article 76 of the constitution, the results of which, as judges reported, were forged by the state and the police.

Following the sit-in, judges will hold a general assembly to determine the steps they will take until the draft they prepared to amend the current judiciary law is adopted.

Many expect that the judges will delay today's general assembly and declare a truce with the state after their partial victory last week when the court trying two reformist judges, Mahmoud Mekki and Hesham Bastawisi, declared the innocence of the first and reprimanded the second, the least disciplinary measure which can be taken against judges.

Faced with widespread public rage, the state was obliged to stop escalating the situation. Bastawisi suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised a day before the court session. Justice Minister Mahmoud Abul-Leil visited Bastawisi this week, a gesture indicating a decrease in tension.

A promise to endorse the new judiciary draft law in a way which satisfies the majority of judges was also given. A joint committee including representatives from the Justice Ministry and the Judges' Club has been formed to finish drafting the law before referring it to the People's Assembly for endorsement.

The chairman of the Judges' Club Zakaria Abdel-Aziz sent a copy of the draft to PA speaker Fathi Sorour who played a major role in settling the recent dispute between the state and judges.

Engineers assembly foiled

HUNDREDS of security forces imposed a siege around the downtown headquarters of the Engineers Syndicate on Friday, banning its members from holding an emergency general assembly, reports Mona El-Nahhas.

Security police also threatened to arrest engineers on the charge of unlicensed gatherings if they had decided to hold the assembly on the street.

Last week, the Interior Ministry issued a statement banning street gatherings or demonstrations without obtaining permission from the ministry and warning that whoever violates the ban will be detained. Engineers were then forced to set a new date for their assembly, to be held on 27 June.

The assembly was due to discuss legal measures engineers intend to take to lift judicial sequestration imposed upon their syndicate since 1995 and to stage new elections.

The state, fearing the coming elections will result in an Islamist- controlled council, has placed several impediments to prevent engineers from lifting the sequestration.

Irrigation Minister Mahmoud Abu Zeid, in his constitutional capacity as the syndicate's sole supervisor, was reluctant to set a date for the elections, arguing that voters' lists had not yet been sorted out.

The court appointed custodian Ahmed Moharram, now in charge of the syndicate's financial and administrative affairs, and who has tried to prevent the holding of elections since a new council will not be in his interest.

A few days before the assembly, Moharram published an advertisement in newspapers warning against holding the assembly, which according to him was illegal. He also appealed to security forces, asking them to ban the holding of the assembly.

The one time Moharram allowed engineers to hold their assembly was in February when he received orders from Abu Zeid to do so.

Broken pledges

THE LEADER of the Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday accused the government of reneging on promises of reform and said the US never really wanted to see democratic change in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

"We are now witnessing a complete reversal of all reform promises and a revocation of every pledge that the president made in his elections programme," Mohamed Mahdi Akef told reporters. "The excessive cruelty, intense force and wide-ranging arrests with which the government -- which claims it wants reform -- deals with the reformists prove that it has lost credibility," he said.

Akef said the clashes were not typical of his group, but vowed not to back down. "The idea of a confrontation with the government is not one of our methods and is not in our dictionary. Yet, we insist to realise freedom," he said. "With God's help, we will continue to be steadfast and walk down the path of truth and of reform until our people regain their freedom and rights... no matter how much we suffer," he said.

Asked if he thought the United States had toned down its calls for democratic change, Akef said Washington never wanted reform in the region. "These people don't want any progress for Egypt or the Arab and Muslim regions," he said. "It's in their interest that the Arab and Islamic worlds remain backward," he added.

Akef said the Brotherhood's gains in Egyptian elections last year -- increasing its number of seats fivefold, to 88 out of 454 seats -- frightened the West, prompting President Hosni Mubarak to "unleash the security men and the rabble-rousers against the Brotherhood".

And he said US power was exaggerated. "See what's happening to America in Iraq and the firm position of Iran and the firm position of Hamas," he said. "True, they have brutal force, but we have something stronger: our insistence on the truth."

Akef described Mubarak's son, Gamal, who is seen by many as heir apparent, as out of touch. "He has nothing to do with the people and he knows nothing about the people," Akef said, adding that the Brotherhood "completely rejects" the possibility of the younger Mubarak "inheriting" office.

Submerged city

ANTIQUITIES authorities have given the go-ahead for the underwater exploration of what appears to be a Roman city submerged in the Mediterranean Sea, Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said on Monday.

Hawass said in a statement that an excavation team had found the ruins of the Roman city 35km east of the Suez Canal on Egypt's north coast.

Archaeologists had found buildings, bathrooms, ruins of a Roman fortress, ancient coins, bronze vases and pieces of pottery that all date back to the Roman era, the statement said.

Egypt's Roman era lasted from 30 BC to 337 AD.

The excavation team also found four bridges that belonged to a submerged castle, part of which had been discovered on the Mediterranean coastline in 1910.

The statement said evidence indicated that part of the site was on the coast and part of it submerged in the sea. The area marked Egypt's eastern border during the Roman era.

Compiled by Mohamed El-Sayed