Egyptians and foreigners attend a protest against terrorism in Sharm El-Sheikh. (Reuters).

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, July 25, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Egypt is hunting for six Pakistanis suspected of involvement in the devastating triple bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, police said Monday, July 25.

Pictures of the suspects were distributed to police stations in the Sharm El-Sheikh area of the southern Sinai peninsula, police in Cairo said, adding that one of them could have died in the July 23 blasts, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Doha-based Al-Jazeera news channel said that five to nine Pakistani suspects might have entered Egypt using forged Jordanian passports.

At least 95 people have already been arrested in a police dragnet as part of a massive search for the perpetrators of the bombings that killed 64 after being revised down by the Egyptian Health Ministry from 88. Some 124 people were injured in the blasts, according to ministry figures.

Pakistan has come under increased international pressure after it emerged that three of the bombers in the July 7 attacks in London were British Muslims of Pakistani descent.

Egyptian Interior Minister Habib El-Adly said Saturday that investigators already had leads and suggested the attacks could be connected to deadly bombings on October 7 in Taba and Nuweiba, killing at least 34 people.

Security sources said DNA samples on the remains of one of the suicide bombers would be compared to those of detained Taba suspects to establish whether they were related.

They said that the attackers used 500 kg (1,100 pounds) of highly explosive materials inside two car bombs and a suitcase.

In a related development, a second unknown group calling itself Mujahedeen Egypt claimed the multiple bombings, naming five attackers.

"Your brothers in the Mujahedeen Egypt carried out the blessed earthquake in Sharm El-Sheikh," the group said in an Internet statement cited by AFP.

The group, which denied any link to Al-Qaeda, said the five "martyrs" carried out seven bombings against hotels and tourist buses used by "Zionists".

"As long as the Zionists do not get out of the land of the Muslims, they will be digging their own graves with their own hands," it said.

The statement identified the attackers as Faisal Khalil, Hassan Abi Rawa, Mohammad Abdel Majid, Nader Mohammad Abdel Ghani and Mohammad Hammoudi Al-Masri, said to be the son of the general commander of Mujahedeen Egypt.

A third group calling itself "Sinai Martyrs Brigades" also claimed the terrorist attacks in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by the Egyptian Al-Ahram daily.

The statement said the attacks came in retaliation for aggressions against the devout people of Sinai.

"We chose Sharm El-Sheikh in particular to strike hard the country’s main source of income," it said, distancing itself from Al-Qaeda.

A group calling itself the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Levant and Egypt was the first to claim the Sharm attacks only few hours after the bombings hit the jewel of Egypt's tourism industry and a second seat of power.

An unidentified Egyptian rests in a hospital in Sharm El-Sheikh. (Reuters).

People searching for the bodies of relatives killed by the grisly blasts are still in a state of shock and could not believe that fellow Egyptians could have carried out the attacks.

The friends and family of taxi driver Ayman Mohamed Hassan, one of the victims, were awaiting his corpse outside a hospital in Sharm El-Sheikh, reported Reuters.

"Why would Egyptians do this to their own people?" Ayman’s friend, Mohamed Salem, asked.

"Our cars were destroyed, our friends killed and wounded," groaned Salem Nasar, who with a dozen other taxi drivers from the Suez Canal town of Ismailia will escort an ambulance carrying Ayman's body home.

One of the three bombs exploded at gathering point for taxi drivers, who like many other Egyptians working at the resort, leave their families for weeks to earn better wages than they can at home.

Inside the hospital Ayman's brother Hassan, a taxi driver wounded in the same blast, lies on blood-stained sheets and struggles to swallow the food his uncle feeds him.

He does not know Ayman is dead. "We don't know yet whether he will be able to see again," his friend Yasser Ibrahim said.

About 20 Egyptian families looking for the bodies of relatives have visited the morgue of one Sharm El-Sheikh hospital where four corpses have yet to be identified.

Mohammad Abdou could not tell whether any of the four was the corpse of his cousin, Shaaban, who was on night shift at a hotel partially destroyed by the third bomb.

"We are searching in all the hospitals," he said.

If he finds the body, Abdou will escort it for burial in their home town of Manoufia north of Cairo.

"Nobody can say who did this yet, but they were not Egyptians," he said.

Saleh Saeed, a father of four who was blinded and badly burned by one of the explosions, said it was impossible that Egyptians carried out the attacks.

"I've lost my eyesight. What am I going to do now?"