Egyptian police said yesterday they had arrested 45 Muslim militants after the tourist massacre as they identified the first of the attackers who gunned down 62 people in Luxor this week.
The suspected members of the Jamaa Islamiyya were arrested in sweeps of the town of Badari and nearby villages in the southern province of Asyut during the days after Monday's carnage in Luxor, police sources said.
Security forces were continuing searches in the cave-filled mountains on the eastern bank of the Nile river in search of hidden Jamaa members, police said.
The arrests come as the government prepares to implement over the next 24 hours a new security plan to protect tourists after security lapses were blamed for allowing the devastating attack against one of Egypt's top tourist sites.
Badari, 400 km south of Cairo, is the home of Medhat Abdel Rahman, whom police identified yesterday as a member of the six-man Jamaa group, all of whom were slain by police in gun battles after the attack.
Police said Abdel Rahman, who had returned to Egypt recently from Sudan and Pakistan, had met other members of the group in caves near Badari before the attack, which killed 58 tourists, two Egyptians and two policemen.
The Interior Minister, Mr Habib al-Adeli, called Abdel Rahman "one of the most dangerous terrorists," saying he had been wanted for involvement in 12 attacks against police in Asyut in 1992 and 1993.
Mr Adeli, quoted by the daily Al-Ahram yesterday, said police had discovered "more important information" about the attackers, but did not elaborate.
The Jamaa, Egypt's main militant group which has waged a violent anti-government campaign since 1992, offered on Thursday to stop its attacks if the government releases Muslim militants held in its prisons.
The government has not responded officially to the offer, which repeated a similar offer by the group last summer.
President Hosni Mubarak and his officials have refrained from firebrand speeches against Muslim extremists which were common from former interior minister Mr Hassan al-Alfi, who often vowed to "wipe out" militant groups with an iron fist.
Mr Alfi was forced to resign on Tuesday after Mr Mubarak blamed him for security lapses.
But the head of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi, the top Sunni Muslim authority, lashed out at the militants calling them "bastards" during prayers in one of Luxor's main mosques yesterday. "They are traitors to God, to the prophet, to every religion and morality. Any orders they received, they received from Satan himself," he said.
"And not just them. Anyone who protects them, who gives them any aid or does not expose them is a criminal like them and deserves the same punishment they will receive."
But exiled Egyptian Islamists based in London yesterday said Mr Mubarak's regime was ultimately responsible for the Luxor massacre.
"The regime justifies [by its behaviour] the use of violence," said Mr Yasser el-Serri, who faces a death sentence in Egypt for the attempted murder in 1993 of former prime minister Atef Sedki.
Meanwhile in Cairo, the families of 10 Japanese tourists killed in the attack at the temple of Hatshepsut, a major archaeological site in Luxor, returned home yesterday with the bodies of their loved ones and others injured in the attack.
The families held a Buddhist prayer service in Cairo's Maadi military hospital in the morning to commemorate the dead, most of whom were newly-wed couples.
The bodies of 35 Swiss, four Germans, two Colombians, a French woman and a Bulgarian have already been returned home over the past 36 hours.