LUXOR, Egypt -- No casualties occurred among tourists from a "terrorist attack" foiled by police near Karnak Temple in Upper Egypt's Luxor earlier on Wednesday, Governor Mohamed Badr said.
Local police exchanged fire with four assailants, who tried to break into the tourist site, killing two of them, while a third attacker wearing an explosive belt blew himself up, killing himself and injuring the fourth militant.
"There were no injuries among foreign and Egyptian visitors who were inside the temple," the governor told Xinhua, noting that such terror acts have become common in the whole world. "Terrorism has neither homeland nor a specific place."
"The high alert of security men prevented a destructive blow to the Egyptian tourism sector," Badr added.
A security source in Luxor told Xinhua that a policeman and a souvenir store owner were injured during the attack.
Ahmed Antar, a 38-year-old bazaar owner at Karank Temple yard, said that he was inside his shop when he heard the sound of gunshots and that he went out in a hurry to see what was going on.
"I found policemen exchanging fire with three masked militants and a fourth wearing an explosive belt. I heard one of them say'blow it up now!' and the other responded and did," Antar told Xinhua.
For his part, Khaled al-Manawi, head of the chamber of Luxor tourist agencies, said that he contacted big tour operators abroad and they asserted that there were no booking cancellations and that the accident would not negatively affect planned tours to the city.
"Tourists are carrying out their programs in Luxor normally and some British and Russian tourists refused to leave the city and go to Hurghada instead," Manawi told Xinhua.
Wednesday's attack is the first in Luxor since 1997 when self-proclaimed Islamist militants shot dead 62 people, mostly tourists.
Terror activities mounted in Egypt since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi by the military in July 2013 after mass protests against his one-year rule and his Muslim Brotherhood group, currently outlawed.
Most of the anti-government attacks that killed hundreds of police and army men were claimed by Sinai-based, al-Qaida-inspired Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis militant group, which has changed its name to"Sinai State" as an Egyptian branch for the Islamic State (IS) group.
They justify their attacks as retaliation for a security crackdown on Morsi's supporters, which left more than 1,000 dead while thousands were arrested.
Egyptian courts are holding mass trials for thousands of Morsi's supporters. The former president along with more than 100 other defendants have recently been handed appealable death sentences over their roles in a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak.
In its annual report released in late May, Egypt's National Council for Human Rights said that violence since Morsi's removal has resulted in the death of 2,600 people, including 700 police and army men, 550 civilians and 1,250 Brotherhood members and supporters. Enditem
