A series of Islamist terrorist attacks linked to al-Qaeda were planned to occur on or near January 1, 2000, in the context of millennium celebrations, including bombing plots against four tourist sites in Jordan, the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), USS The Sullivans, and the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814.
The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, known by the French acronym GICM, was a Sunni Islamist militant organization that operated in Morocco, North Africa, and Western Europe. The organization's objective was to establish an Islamic government in Morocco.
Hurghada is a coastal city that serves as the largest city and capital of the Red Sea Governorate of Egypt. Hurghada has grown from a small fishing village to one of the largest resort destinations along the Red Sea coast, stretching close to 40 km.
The 2004 Sinai bombings were three bomb attacks targeting tourist hotels in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, on 7 October 2004. The attacks left 34 people dead and 171 injured.
Terrorism in Egypt in the 20th and 21st centuries has targeted the Egyptian government officials, Egyptian police and Egyptian army members, tourists, Sufi Mosques and the Christian minority. Many attacks have been linked to Islamic extremism, and terrorism increased in the 1990s when the Islamist movement al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya targeted high-level political leaders and killed hundreds – including civilians – in its pursuit of implementing traditional Sharia law in Egypt.
Tourism is one of the leading sources of income, crucial to Egypt's economy. At its peak in 2010, the sector employed about 12% of workforce of Egypt, serving approximately 14.7 million visitors to Egypt, and providing revenues of nearly $12.5 billion as well as contributing more than 11% of GDP and 14.4% of foreign currency revenues.
On 26 June 2015, a mass shooting occurred at the tourist resort at Port El Kantaoui, about 10 kilometres north of the city of Sousse, Tunisia. Thirty-eight people, 30 of whom were British, were killed when a gunman, Seifeddine Rezgui, attacked a hotel. It was the deadliest non-state attack in the history of modern Tunisia, with more fatalities than the 22 killed in the Bardo National Museum attack three months before. The attack received widespread condemnation around the world. The Tunisian government later "acknowledged fault" for slow police response to the attack.
An increase of violence occurred in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict starting in the autumn of 2015 and lasting into the first half of 2016. It was called the "Intifada of the Individuals" by Israeli sources, the Knife Intifada, Stabbing Intifada or Jerusalem Intifada by international sources because of the many stabbings in Jerusalem, or Habba by Palestinian sources. 38 Israelis and 235 Palestinians were killed in the violence. 558 Israelis and thousands of Palestinians were injured.
In July 2013, at the same time as mass protests began against the 3 July coup d'état which deposed Mohamed Morsi, and in parallel with the escalation of the already ongoing jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, pro-Muslim Brotherhood militants started violent attacks against policemen and soldiers in central and western Egypt. In the following months, new Islamist armed groups were created to reinstate Islamist rule in Egypt, like Soldiers of Egypt and the Popular Resistance Movement. Since 2013, violence in mainland Egypt has escalated and developed into a low-level Islamist insurgency against the Egyptian government.
On 8 March 2016, a 21-year-old Palestinian man from Qalqilya killed an American tourist and wounded ten civilians in a stabbing spree in Jaffa Port, Tel Aviv, Israel. The attacker was shot dead by the police after a chase along the beach promenade.
On 13 March 2016, three Islamist gunmen opened fire at a beach resort in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, killing at least 19 people and injuring 33 others.
The IS insurgency in Tunisia refers to the ongoing, Low level militant and terror activity of the Islamic State branch in Tunisia. The activity of the Islamic State (IS) in Tunisia began in June 2015, with the Sousse attacks, though an earlier terror incident in Bardo Museum in March 2015 was claimed by ISIL, while the Tunisian government blamed Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade for the attack. Following massive border clashes near Ben Guerdane in March 2016, the activity of the IS group was described as an armed insurgency, switching from previous tactics of sporadic suicide attacks to attempts to gain territorial control.
On 5 October 2016, three police officers were attacked by a man wielding a machete in the Schaerbeek municipality of Brussels, Belgium. Two of them suffered stab wounds, while the third was physically assaulted but otherwise uninjured. The suspected assailant, a Belgian citizen named Hicham Diop, was apprehended and charged with attempted terrorism-related murder and participating in a terrorist group.
ISIL-related terrorist attacks in France refers to the terrorist activity of the Islamic State in France, including attacks committed by Islamic State-inspired lone wolves. The French military operation Opération Sentinelle has been ongoing in France since the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks.
On 3 February 2017, an Egyptian national in France on a tourist visa was shot as he rushed a group of French soldiers guarding a principal entrance to the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, with a machete. One soldier was injured in the fight. The soldiers were patrolling the museum as part of Opération Sentinelle, guarding the Carrousel du Louvre, in which an underground shopping mall also serves as a gift shop, ticket sales office, and public entrance to the museum.
On 3 February 2015, three soldiers, guarding a Jewish community center in Nice, France, were attacked with a knife by Moussa Coulibaly, a lone-wolf terrorist.
On 14 July 2017 Abdel-Rahman Shaaban, a former university student from the Nile Delta region, swam from a public beach to each of two resort hotel beaches at Hurghada on the Red Sea and stabbed five German, one Armenian and one Czech tourists, all women, killing two German women. The Czech tourist died on 27 July. The perpetrator shouted that the Egyptian hotel personnel who gave pursuit after the stabbings at the second beach should "Stay back, I am not after Egyptians". Nevertheless, hotel personnel pursued and captured the attacker.
Terrorism and tourism in Egypt is when terrorist attacks are specifically aimed at Egypt's tourists. These attacks often end in fatalities and injuries and have an immediate and sometimes lasting effect on the industry. Attacks take many forms; blowing up an airplane carrying tourists, drive-by shootings of tourists, knife attacks on tourists and suicide bombings in a location where tourists are congregated. On the timeline of these events, the 1997 Luxor Massacre stands out - 62 tourists were ambushed and killed.
Islamic State – Sinai Province 