CAIRO, April 7, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Four people were killed, including a French and an American, Thursday, April 7, in a bomb attack in one of Cairo's main tourist areas that wounded 18 others, according to a statement by the health ministry.

The bomb exploded in a tourist bazaar in downtown Cairo close to the Al-Azhar mosque, according to Reuters, citing an interior ministry statement.

The interior ministry statement added there were four French among the injured, three United States citizens, an Italian, a Turk and nine Egyptians, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The statement added an investigation has been launched into the incident, without providing further details.

After the ministry of interior put the number of killed at only two, a report by AFP put the number of casualties at four, citing unnamed security sources. The report was later confirmed by the health ministry.

Al-Jajeera’s Cairo correspondent earlier quoted an ambulance driver as saying at least three bodies were removed from the scene.

It was not immediately clear what had caused the blast.

Initial reports said the blast was traced to a man on a motorcycle, but Al-Jazeera said bombs were involved, citing a huge hole in the ground at the blast scene, according to its Cairo correspondent.

AFP also said some eyewitness reports, which were not confirmed by the police, said the explosion occurred after a man riding the motorcycle threw a bomb at a group of tourists in the area.

The area has been cordoned-off and hundreds of police have already arrived. Several ambulances were on the scene.

Al-Azhar is considered the most important religious university in the Sunni Muslim world and is attended by 90,000 students, according to AFP.

Egyptian security forces cordoned the scene of blast. (Reuters)

The Al-Azhar mosque and university are in the middle of Cairo’s most popular tourist district, which includes the Khan Al-Kahalili open-air bazaar, where the attack took place.

Thousands of tourists pass through the area every day, buying souvenirs from stalls that line the area’s maze of medieval alleyways.

The Egyptian economy is heavily dependent on tourism and has been severely hit by previous attacks.

Egypt is a hugely popular destination for tourists owing to its Pharaonic monuments, Nile cruises and Red Sea coast.

In October last year, 34 people, including several Israeli tourists, were killed and more than 10 wounded in triple bomb attacks on the Hilton hotel Taba and two other neighboring resorts in the Sinai peninsula.

The Sinai attack was the worst on tourists in Egypt since 1997 when some 58 foreign holidaymakers were killed in an attack in the southern city of Luxor that was claimed by the extremist group Jammaa Islamiyya.

Another Egyptian man stabbed an Australian and two Norwegian tourists in the same area of Cairo in February last year after mistaking them for Americans.