Rabat – A roadside bomb hit a tourist bus on Friday in Greater Cairo, near the Giza Pyramids, killing three Vietnamese tourists and their Egyptian guide, Egypt’s Public Prosecutor Nabil Sadeq said in a statement.
The explosion injured 10 other Vietnamese tourists and the Egyptian bus driver, according to Egypt’s State Information Service.
The bomb exploded at 6:15 p.m. local time when the bus was travelling in the Marioutiyah area near the pyramids, the ministry said.
The tourist bus was reported to be carrying up to 14 Vietnamese tourists.
The tourists were heading to “a sound and light show at the pyramids,” which they had visited earlier in the day, said Lan Le, 41, who was also on the bus, according to Reuters.
“We were going to the sound and light show and then suddenly we heard a bomb. It was terrible, people screaming,” Le told Reuters. “I don’t remember anything after.”
The Vietnamese tourist was speaking at Al Haram Hospital, where the injured tourists were taken.
Vietnam has called on Egypt to determine those responsible for the attack.
“Vietnam is extremely angered by and strongly condemns this act of terrorism that killed and injured innocent Vietnamese people,” the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Le Thi Thu Hang, said in a statement.
“Vietnam requests that Egypt promptly launch an investigation into the case and track down those responsible.”
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One day later, police kill 40 ‘terrorists’
After the deadly attack, the interior ministry announced that security forces had killed 40 terrorists in a fire exchange in two separate operations on Saturday.
The security forces carried out the operations as part of a crackdown on three terrorist hideouts in Giza, southwest of Cairo, and Sinai, northeastern Egypt, according to the ministry’s statement.
The police killed 30 terrorists in two hideouts in Giza and killed 10 others in a third hideout in the El-Arish governorate in northern Sinai.
The police also arrested 11 suspects and seized a number of weapons and explosives at the hideouts, according to the statement.
The terrorists were planning to commit terror attacks during celebrations of the New Year and Christmas, against state institutions, Christian places of worship, the Egyptian armed forces, and police sites.
Egypt’s Coptic Christians traditionally celebrate Christmas on January 7.
The interior ministry did not state whether any of the killed or arrested terrorists were linked to the Friday attack on the tour bus.
