After first claiming they were the work of Bedouins, Egypt now says that the terrorist mass murders in Dahab last month were carried out by Palestinians: Egypt says Palestinians involved in Sinai attacks.

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt for the first time revealed that Palestinian militants had taken part in planning suicide attacks that killed 20 people in the Sinai peninsula last month.

Several members of the Egyptian cell that carried out the bombings had trained in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian militants in Egypt were also involved, the interior ministry said in a statement. The ministry, which has blamed a string of deadly attacks in the Sinai peninsula over the past two years on a group called Tawhid wal Jihad (Unification and Holy War), also said three Palestinian suspects were currently in Egyptian custody.

Tawhid wal Jihad leader “Nasser Khamis al-Mallahi sought to send those who perpetrated the Dahab attacks — Ahmed Mohammed al-Koreimi, Mohammed Abdelaziz Nafei and Atallah al-Korm — to Gaza for weapons handling and bomb-making training,” it said.

Egyptian security had verified that at least two other members of the organisation — brothers Ayman and Yusri Mohareb — crossed into the Gaza Strip to prepare for the operation, the statement said. They were part of a larger group that “had contacts with Palestinian (Islamic) fundamentalists”, the interior ministry said, without confirming whether the bombers themselves had actually reached the Gaza Strip.

Twenty people were killed — including several foreigners — and 90 were wounded on April 24, when the three suicide bombings ripped through the popular Red Sea resort of Dahab during a peak holiday season.