EGYPT: As many as 11 Britons may have died in the triple bomb attack on the Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, it was revealed yesterday.
Although only one British holidaymaker is confirmed dead - but not yet named - Sir Derek Plumbly, the British ambassador, told reporters at the emergency room set up in a hotel that there were 10 others "of particular concern".
It is understood they had been in or near the Red Sea holiday resort or were planning to come here, but have not yet contacted their families to say they are safe.
Gen Mustafa Afifi, the governor of south Sinai, said a maximum of 17 foreigners were among the 64 dead.
Identification of bodies was continuing.
The news came as Egyptian police widened their search yesterday for the organisers of the attacks by turning the spotlight on a group of Pakistanis who allegedly entered the country last month, travelled from Cairo to Sharm el-Sheikh, and then went underground.
Security sources told Arab media the men left their passports at hotels for registration with the police, but later disappeared.
The passports were fake, according to the opposition newspaper, Al-Masri al-Youm.
State television yesterday showed pictures of two Pakistanis, and police here were circulating copies of six men, according to AP.
Officials did not go as far as saying the men were definitely connected with the attacks, which occurred shortly after 1am on Saturday in Egypt's popular coastal resort.
Pakistani officials in Islamabad reacted coolly to news reports.
"I think there is no connection between these nine and the bomb blasts," said a foreign ministry spokesman, Muhammad Naeem Khan.
"Basically this information has come from media sources."
Iqbal Cheema, head of the Pakistani interior ministry's counter-terrorism unit, said:
"We haven't heard anything on the official channels, either here or in Cairo."
Egypt's ambassador to Pakistan, Hussein Haridy, confirmed his government had not approached Islamabad for help.
"No official contacts have been made with the authorities here because we have not received any official confirmation from Cairo," he said.
Embassy staff had informally checked the suspects' names given on Arabic television channels against visa files but found no trace.
"There is no record of issuing them with a visa," he said.
Up to 3,000 Pakistanis travel to Egypt every year, he added, mostly for business, to attend conferences or visit relatives. Processing the visas takes as little as 24 hours.
If proven, the Pakistani link would be unprecedented in Egypt, suggesting that an international network carried out the attack.
Speculation about the attacks already includes three possible sources, all of them Arab.
Responsibility was claimed by the Abdullah Azzam brigades of al-Qaeda in Egypt and Syria on a website.
They described the attacks as a "response against the evil powers spilling Muslim blood in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya".
This group also claimed responsibility after similar attacks in October on hotels in the Red Sea resort of Taba, close to the Israeli border.
A previously unknown group, the Holy Warriors of Egypt, also put out a statement on Saturday saying they were behind the attacks.
A third suggestion, which comes from critics of President Hosni Mubarak, is that the bombings may have been a reprisal carried out by the Sinai bedouins for mass arrests made after the Taba attacks.
There has been periodic unrest between the government and local clans in the bleak desert terrain of Sinai, and the Sharm el-Sheikh bombers may have needed local knowledge to smuggle their explosives on remote tracks into what is a relatively well-guarded city.
Every hotel has metal detectors and ordinary police are strengthened by special contingents of tourist police.