Four wanted for Dahab blasts surrender to police

EL-ARISH, Egypt May 12 (Reuters) Four men wanted in connection with bombings that killed 20 people in the Sinai resort of Dahab last month have turned themselves in, security sources said today.

The surrenders came shortly after police killed Nasr Khamis el-Milahi, a man the Interior Ministry named as the leader of a group it blames for a series of attacks in Sinai since October 2004, and the arrest of his assistant in a gunbattle on Tuesday.

''The four wanted men turned themselves in, and they are Naif Ibrahim Saleh Ameira, Abdel Gadr Suweilim Suleiman, Ismail Salama Ouda Hussein, and Hatem Musellem Rasheed el-Atrash,'' a security official who declined to be named said.

Security sources had previously said el-Atrash had been arrested.

The men were part of a group of 25 wanted people, including farmers and religious leaders, security sources said, adding some of the group were being sought in connection with bombings in Taba and other nearby resorts in 2004.

The security official added that el-Milahi's assistant, Abdullah Alyan Abu Jarir, had given them new leads and names of suspects not on the list of 25 since his arrest on Tuesday.

Authorities have blamed a group called Tawhid wal Jihad (One God and Jihad) for a series of attacks in Sinai since October 2004, and say that 15 of its members are currently on trial.

They describe it as a group of Sinai Bedouin with militant Islamist views, though the group itself has never issued a statement or claimed responsibility for attacks.

Excluding el-Milahi, six wanted men have been killed in the last two weeks in gunfights in northern Sinai. Men identified by the authorities as members of the group have come mainly from El Arish, a poor town on the Mediterranean coast in northern Sinai.

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