Iran condemns terror attack on Vietnamese tourists in Egypt

Iranian Foreign Ministry has condemned as “heinous and deplorable” a deadly terrorist attack on foreign tourists visiting an Egyptian historic site.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Saturday that the attack on Vietnamese tourists visiting Egypt’s famous Giza pyramids was a blind act of terror which should be condemned.

“Targeting innocent men and women who have arrived in country for sightseeing is heinous and deplorable,” said Qassemi in a statement published on the Ministry’s website.

The Iranian official also expressed his sympathy with the families of the Vietnamese victims as well as the government and people of Vietnam.

Four killed in Egypt bus bombing

A bomb explosion hits a bus transporting tourists in Egypt’s Giza.

Three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian guide were killed in the bombing attack that shook Marioutiya Street in Giza, near Cairo, on Saturday. The Egyptian Interior Ministry said 11 other Vietnamese tourists as well as the Egyptian driver of the bus that was carrying them were injured in the attack.

Egypt has been the scene of terrorist attacks since a series of political developments that led to the rise of former army chief and current president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2014.

Many believe the government’s heavy-handed crackdown on followers and sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and most popular political party in the Arab world, has played a role in the surging violence.

Egyptian authorities said Saturday that they had launched a swift operation in Giza to hunt the terrorists that were behind the bomb attack on the tourists’ bus.

They said some 40 militants, suspected of membership in a group affiliated with Daesh, were killed in the operation.

The Interior Ministry said 30 of the slain militants had been operating in Giza and the rest were members of terrorist groups active in al-Arish in the north of the Sinai Peninsula.