Sepcial Report: Blast rocks Egypt's Red Sea resort

    CAIRO, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Wednesday near a base of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing no one but themselves.

    The two suicide bombings came in the wake of triple deadly explosions in the popular Sinai resort of Dahab on Monday evening, which killed 18 people and injured about 83 others.

    The two suicide bomb attacks occurred at 10:30 a.m. (0830 GMT)near the MFO base in Al-Gurah, 30 km southeast of Al-Arish on the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai Peninsula, which is very close to the border of Egypt and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

    The Egyptian Interior Ministry confirmed the two suicide bombings in a statement.

    The statement, released several hours after the incidents, identified one of the two bombers as a Bedouin, an Arab of the nomadic tribes. No further details were released over the two bombers' identities.

    The ministry also denied earlier reports saying that two peacekeeping soldiers were injured in the attacks.

    In the first bombing, Egyptian officers, who were accompanying several MFO soldiers to a nearby airport used by the base, spotted a man holding an explosive charge while their car was passing by.

    The Bedouin bomber blew himself up immediately, but causing no casualties among the officers and the foreign soldiers, said the statement.

    Meanwhile, a spokesman for the MFO also denied that two of its soldiers were injured.

    In the second bombing, two Egyptian officers were traveling in a car when a suicide bomber intercepted their way and blew up an explosive charge. The bomber was killed on the spot while the two officers remained unharmed.

    The ministry also denied earlier reports, which said that gunmen exchanged fire with the police at a police checkpoint in Sharqiya, some 65 km north of capital Cairo.

    The two suicide attacks targeting the MFO base were the second of its kind in about eight months.

    On Aug. 15, 2005, a remote-controlled bomb went off near an MFO camp and injured two female MFO members.

    The MFO is an independent peacekeeping mission created as a result of the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

    Various nations have contributed military and civilian personnel to the mission.

    Currently, the MFO maintained a 1,800-strong force from a total of 11 countries, namely, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Fiji, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the United States and Uruguay. Enditem