At least 30 people were killed and 150 injured after a series of devastating blasts tore through the Egyptian resort town of Dahab last night.
The three explosions, which happened at about 7.15pm local time, left the streets of the town littered with body parts, glass and debris, and smoke billowing over the tourist bazaar.
Initial reports suggested that bombs were detonated at a restaurant, a hotel and a police station in the coastal town, which is popular with British scuba divers and other tourists. Ambulance workers said many of the dead appeared to be foreigners.
The bombings came a day after the broadcast of a tape by Osama bin Laden in which the al-Qaeda leader appeared to justify attacks on western civilians.
Joseph Nazir, who owns a safari company in Dahab, said one of the blasts had destroyed the Al Capone restaurant, one of the busiest in the town. "There is nothing there," he said. "The tables and chairs have gone, there is nothing left."
He said the explosion had covered an area of around 100sq m and that many Egyptian holidaymakers had been in the area at the time. "Everybody is panicking, a lot of people are crying," he said.
Dr Said Essa, who runs Egypt's Sinai Peninsula rescue squad, said he believed at least 18 people had been killed and at least 150 wounded in an explosion at the el- Khaleeg hotel in the el-Masbat section of the town.
A spokesman for the interior ministry confirmed there had been explosions but said he had no further information. A doctor at the Dahab international hospital said 12 bodies and 23 people with serious injuries had been brought to his emergency room alone.
Paul McBeath, a British tourist who witnessed the blasts, said there had been no warning. "There were just three loud bangs and people rushing around," he told Sky News. "Everybody is shaken."
Dahab, on the Gulf of Aqaba on the eastern side of the Sinai peninsula, is in its high tourist season, meaning that hotels all along the Egyptian coasts are expected to be at near capacity, mainly filled with Europeans, Israelis and expatriates.
Terrorist attacks have killed nearly 100 people at several tourist resorts of the Sinai region in the past two years. Bombings in the resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan, near the Israeli border, killed 34 people in October 2004.
The Egyptian government has said those who carried out the bombings were locals without international connections, but other security agencies have said they suspect al-Qaeda