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2004 Sinai bombings
Location	Taba and Nuweiba, Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
Target(s)	hotels popular with tourists
Date	7 October 2004
Attack Type	car bombings
Fatalities	34 or 35, mostly Israeli
Injuries	171
Perpetrator(s)	masterminded by Iyad Saleh and carried out by a Palestinian group
Motive	presumably the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The 2004 Sinai bombings were three bomb attacks targeting tourist hotels in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, on October 7, 2004. The attacks killed 34 people and injured 171.

Contents 1 The bombings 2 The investigation 3 Aftermath 4 See also 5 External links

The explosions occurred on the night of October 7, against the Hilton Hotel in Taba and campsites used by Israelis in Ras al-Shitan. In the Taba attack, a truck drove into the lobby of the Taba Hilton and exploded, killing 31 people and wounding some 159 others. Ten floors of the hotel collapsed following the blast.

Some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south, at campsites at Ras al-Shitan, near Nuweiba, two more bombings happened. A car parked in front of a restaurant at the Moon Island resort exploded, killing three Israelis and a Bedouin. Twelve were wounded. Another blast happened moments later, targeting the Baddiyah camp, but did not harm anyone because the bomber had apparently been scared off from entering the campground by a guard.

Of the dead, many were foreigners: 12 were from Israel, two from Italy, one from Russia, and one was an Israeli-American. The rest of the dead were believed to be Egyptian.

According to the Egyptian government, the bombers were Palestinians who had tried to enter Israel to carry out attacks there but were unsuccessful. The mastermind, Iyad Saleh, recruited Egyptians and Bedouins to gain explosives to be used in the attacks.

Beginning in March 2004, the bombers used washing machine timers, mobile phones and modified gas cylinders to build the bombs. They used TNT and old explosives found in the Sinai (as it was many times a war zone), which were purchased from Bedouins, to complete the bombs.

Egypt has said that Saleh and one of his aides, Suleiman Ahmed Saleh Flayfil, died in the Hilton blast, apparently because the timer had run out too fast. Two Egyptians, Mohammed Gaber Sabbah and Mohammed Abdullah Rabaa, are on trial for the bombings. Others remain on the loose.

According to investigators, there is no strong link to al-Qaeda in the blasts.

Israel had warned in September 2004 that terrorists were planning attacks in the Sinai, but most Israelis did not heed those warnings and went on vacation there instead. To some, this made the attacks all the more tragic. Many Israelis left the Sinai after the bombings, along with some foreign tourists, but the effects on the country's tourism were not too severe.

Militants struck again at tourists in April 2005, killing three and wounding several. Resorts in Sharm el-Sheikh were bombed in a similar attack in July 2005.

• April 2005 Cairo attacks
• July 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks
• 2006 Dahab bombings

• Death toll rises in Egypt blasts - BBC News
• 'Mass arrests' after Sinai bombs
• Sinai attackers failed to enter Israel - Ynet news, Israel