On November 17, 1997, “The Egyptian-born [Islamic Jihad leader Ayman al] Zawahiri wanted to destabilize his country’s secular government and had decided to start by disrupting the profitable tourist trade. A cell he directed opened up with machine guns and hand grenades on a bus of Japanese tourists in northern Egypt. After killing them, the attackers went after another bus filled with French, German, and Swiss passengers. Then they hunted down tourists in the nearby ancient temples, using knives to slaughter more. The police did not arrive for nearly forty-five minutes, by which time fifty-eight tourists were dead, and dozens wounded, many critically.”
– Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page 147