Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

200 arrests follow Cairo bombing

Bomber Ehab Yousri Yassin "had gone too far into Islamic extremism," a friend said.

SHUBRA EL-KHEIMA, Egypt - Once the cheerful leader of a school singing group, Ehab Yousri Yassin underwent a drastic change a few years ago, mingling with Islamic extremists, talking only about religion and forcing his sisters to wear head-to-toe veils.

Residents of this impoverished city on Cairo's northern outskirts provided insights into the 24-year-old's life Sunday, a day after security officials said he blew himself up while jumping from a bridge in central Cairo during a police chase.

The explosion killed Yassin - suspected of involvement in an April 7 suicide bombing in a crowded Cairo bazaar - and injured seven others, including four foreigners.

Less than two hours later, police claim, one of Yassin's sisters and his fiancee, enraged by his death, opened fire on a tourist bus. The two women died, but it was unclear who shot them. Two Egyptians were also wounded.

Police cracked down hard, arresting 200 people in massive security sweeps Saturday and Sunday in two areas just north of Cairo.

Yassin's friends and relatives were held for questioning in Saturday's violence and suspected connections to local terror networks.

Police played down the attacks as the work of amateurish militants, but political opposition groups and security experts blamed Egypt's controversial decades-old emergency laws, saying they created an oppressive environment that breeds violence and extremists like Yassin.

Yassin grew up in the crowded streets of Ezbet al-Gabalawi, a Shubra el-Kheima district. People said he was a polite and happy leader of a school singing group before adopting hard-line Islamic views about four years ago.

"He forced his sisters to wear the Islamic veil and had gone too far into Islamic extremism," said one of Yassin's friends, Tamer Sayyed.

"Yassin started to quarrel with his father and criticize others for subjects they used to talk about, instead of speaking about Islam. That made his friends decide to distance themselves from him."

Muna Rashad, a pharmacist who worked for 16 years near Yassin's home, said he "was good, smiling and behaved well."

But his mother's death and the city's poverty made him turn to extremism, she said.

"Poverty kills the brain," she added.

[Last modified May 2, 2005, 01:43:05]