Egypt says Libya placed train bomb

Press, 16 August 1976, Page 6

Egypt says Libya placed train bomb

NZ PA-Reuter Alexandria Egypt has blamed Libya for a bomb that exploded aboard a train at Alexandria on Saturday, killing eight persons and injuring 50. It was the most serious bombing incident in Egypt in recent years.

An Interior Ministry statement said the bomb was similar to those used in other attacks for which Libya has been held res x>ngible. Egypt announced recently that it had deployed fresh troops along the Libyan border to block the entry of Libyan-trained saboteurs. For its part, Libya has denied responsibility for the scattered bombings thisi year, and threatened to cut diplomatic links on September 1 unless Egypt moderates its attitude The official Egyptian Middle East News Agency said the bombing had been “within the framework of the Libyan sabotage plan.” United Press International said the dead included a

one-year-old girl and two other children. The wounded included three suspects who were placed under arrest in Government hospitals. One of the injured, a schoolteacher, Mr Mohammed Abdel Hamid, said he had boarded the Alexan-dria-to-Aswan express with his family, and seen a black handbag on a luggage rack. A few minutes later the I bag had exploded. “I felt as if my head itself had exploded," he said. “Splinters of broken glass and wood were flying in all directions. Screams of terror land appeals for help echoed i everywhere. 1 “I fell to the ground, only j to find the body of my onei year-old child torn to .'pieces,” Mr Hamid said. “I

had to collect her, piece by piece,” he said, and wept. The time-bomb exploded while the train was moving from the yard to the station, but many passengers, mostly labourers and peasants, already had boarded for the 700-mile journey to Aswan. NZPA-Reuter reported that M.E.N.A. said an angry crowd tried to storm the Libyan consulate in Alexandria in revenge, but were (dispersed by policemen. Fourteen persons were injured by two bombs planted in Cairo last Sunday. The police arrested an Egyptian blinded by the second blast, land M.E.N.A. said he had i confessed to interrogators • that he had been trained in ' | sabotage at a Libyan Army I camp in Benghazi.