18 KILLED OUTSIDE EGYPTIAN HOTEL : FOUR GUNMEN SHATTER CALM BY OPENING FIRE ON GREEK TOURISTS.

Byline: Alan Sipress Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

In the bloodiest attack since Egypt's Islamic militants launched an armed insurrection four years ago, 18 people were killed Thursday when four gunmen opened fire with assault rifles on a group of Greek tourists outside their hotel near the Pyramids.

The assault came after a long lull during which Egypt had managed to restore a measure of international confidence in its vital tourism industry in the face of a campaign by militants to overthrow Egypt's secular government.

The massacre outside the Hotel Europa, situated along a major boulevard crowded with restaurants, hotels and apartment blocks, was dramatic proof that Egypt's efforts to crush the uprising have not succeeded as thoroughly as security officials had recently claimed.

No suspects were apprehended Thursday and no group took responsibility for the attack, in which 14 of the victims were women. But it was widely assumed that the gunmen were from the militant Gamaa Islamiya (Islamic Group), which has targeted tourists on about 30 previous occasions, along with security officers and Egyptian Christians.

The group, battling to overthrow the pro-Western regime of President Hosni Mubarak, often issues statements claiming credit for violent attacks. The militants had not killed more than two foreigners in a previous single operation.

The shooting Thursday was a tragic end to a weeklong Easter tour of the Holy Land for scores of Greek pilgrims, who had arrived in Cairo on Tuesday after spending the Greek Orthodox Easter in Jerusalem. The attack also killed an Egyptian parking attendant and wounded 17 other people.

As the tourists assembled in front of the 10-story hotel to board buses for the Pyramids and the ancient Christian churches of Old Cairo about 7 a.m., four gunmen leaped from a white van parked across the street, witnesses said. The assailants, described as teen-agers dressed in ordinary Western clothes, shouted ``Allahu Akbar,'' or ``God is Great,'' before spraying members of the largely elderly group with Kalashnikov automatic-rifle fire.

``There was so many bullets coming outside. It was not only one automatic gun but plenty, plenty,'' said Bill Pandoes, one of the tourists.

The gunmen fired into one bus, shattering its tinted windows, and then turned their weapons on the hotel itself.

``They were shooting from outside the hotel into the hotel,'' said one of the tourists. ``I think they wanted all of us dead.''

Another tourist, Sotirios Grykis, said: ``I heard boom, boom, boom, boom, four shots in the first burst, then it started again, a longer burst, and I saw women falling like flies, covered in blood.''

Witnesses said the shooting lasted for more than five minutes before the attackers raced back to the waiting van and sped off.

Some of the wounded struggled back into the hotel for cover while others dropped to the ground. Blood was splattered on the cobblestone driveway and on the marble steps, as well as inside the lobby of the four-star hotel. Dozens of spent cartridges were scattered amid water bottles and picnic sandwiches.

The attack raised the number of people killed in the Islamic insurgency to 940, most of whom have been either extremists or government security forces. The number of foreigners killed rose to 25, with 73 wounded, in attacks over the past four years.

The government had responded with a crackdown in which hundreds of suspected militants were arrested, scores were put before military tribunals, and some 50 were executed after conviction.

CAPTION(S):

2 Maps

Map: (1) (Cairo, Egypt)

(2) Site of shooting (Europa Hotel )

The New York Times