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German, Egyptians killed by militants

By BAHAA ELKOUSSY

CAIRO, Sept. 28 -- Three people, including a German tourist, have been killed and two others have been wounded by unidentified gunmen believed to be Muslim militants in a popular Egyptian resort town on the Red Sea, authorities reported Wednesday. Alexander Molks, 26, from Berlin, was among those killed in shooting late Tuesday in a main square in the town of Hurghada, 341 miles (548 km) southeast of Cairo. Two Egyptians, a student and a bus company employee, were killed in the attack and two others, another German tourist from Berlin and an Egyptian woman, were injured. A spokesman at the German Embassy in Cairo, Bernd Erbel, said Markus Matsche, who was wounded in the stomach, was flown by Egyptian military helicopter to the Maadi Military Hospital in Cairo and was in a stable condition. Erbel said authorities in Germany have for two years warned tourists 'to take special care in central upper Egypt,' but said it was too early to predict whether this latest attack, which is the first ever in this popular destination for Germans, would result in issuing a travel warning on the area. Also on Tuesday, suspected Islamic militants opened fire on a train as it travelled near the Nile town of Malawi el-Minya, 186 miles (300 km) south of Cairo, wounding two passengers who were taken to a hospital. Police officials also said 50 suspected extremists have been rounded up in the southern provinces of Assiut and El-Minya, two of the militants' strongholds.

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With some 620,000 tourists coming to Egypt in 1993, Germany has continued for years to supply the highest number of tourists. The militant El-Gamaa el-Islameya, or Islamic Group, has declared responsibility for several attacks on tourists since the autumn of 1992, but so far no group has claimed responsibility for the Hurghada attack. The group said it carried out an attack in August on a bus carrying tourists near Luxor, killing a Spanish boy and wounding his father and others. The extremists have targeted the once lucrative tourism industry, which was for years the country's chief earner of foreign currency, as part of their 31-month-old violent campaign aimed to topple the government and replace it with an Islamic regime. Since militants waged their campaign in March 1992, more than 425 people have been killed and more than 700 others have been wounded.

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