20110613
Reuters
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces have captured the main suspect in a 2009 bombing at a popular Cairo tourist bazaar that killed a French teenager, security sources said on Sunday.

The bombing in the crowded 14th century Khan al-Khalili market also injured at least 25 other people. It was the first fatal attack on tourists in Egypt since bombs killed at least 23 people at an Egyptian resort in the Sinai peninsula in 2006.

Security sources said the 39-year-old Egyptian, identified as Khaled Mahmoud Mostafa, had repeatedly travelled illegally to the Gaza Strip to join Palestinian "terrorist groups".

"He was captured about a week ago as he frequented his home in Beni Suef," a security source told Reuters, referring to a province south of the capital Cairo.

The source said Mostafa, who was being questioned, had "entered Egypt and left for Gaza in an illegal manner". Smugglers use tunnels to cross the border into Gaza.

Egyptian security sources had said remains of the bomb used in that attack resembled another bombing at a church in Alexandria on New Year's Day in 2011 that killed 23 people.