Attack in Egypt's Red Sea resort seen as ISIL-inspired

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Updated at 9:35 p.m. BJT

Egyptian police on Saturday revealed the motive of the attacker who killed two German women and wounded four others at a Red Sea beach resort in Egypt, Xinhua reported citing judicial sources.

The attacker was reportedly confessed to sharing the ideology of the ISIL group, though ISIL has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

The suspect is a 28-year-old man from Kafr al-Sheikh province in the Nile Delta, north of Cairo.

Medics rush an injured tourist at the Zahabia hotel resort, after an Egyptian man stabbed two German tourists to death and wounded four others in Hurghada, south of the capital Cairo, Egypt, July 14, 2017. / VCG Photo

Updated at 5:38 p.m. BJT

Germany announced that the two female tourists who were stabbed to death on Friday in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Hurghada were German nationals.

"We now have the sad certainty that two German women were killed in the attack in Hurghada," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said, calling the attack a deliberate act targeting foreigners.

"According to what we know, the act was a deliberate attack on foreign tourists - a particularly devious and criminal act that leaves us sad, dismayed and furious," she added.

Egyptian state-run Ahram Online website reported earlier that two Ukrainian women were stabbed and killed in the assault.

Four other foreign visitors were wounded in the attack – all of whom are also women.

A picture taken on July 15, 2017 shows a general view of the Sunny Days Elpalacio beach in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Hurghada, where an Egyptian stabbed to death two German tourists and injured four others the day before. / VCG Photo‍

Prior to Berlin’s confirmation, Major Gen. Mohamed El-Hamzawi, security manager of the Red Sea region, had told Reuters that the two dead tourists were in fact German, not Ukrainian nationals as initially identified.

He also said that two Czech nationals were also among the four injured, but the Czech foreign ministry tweeted that only one of its nationals had been injured.

The other two wounded tourists were from Armenia, the country’s authorities confirmed.

“According to preliminary information, two citizens of Armenia have been wounded in the Hurghada incident,” Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan said on Twitter.

Investigators believe the attacker, who was immediately arrested after the assault, had swum from a public beach.

Investigation is underway to determine the motives of the attacker.

In January 2016, two armed men, wielding a knife and wearing a suicide belt, attacked at least three European tourists at a hotel in the same beach resort town.

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