A group of French teenagers on a school trip was hit hard by a bombing at a landmark Cairo bazaar, which killed a 17-year-old girl on the tour and wounded more than a dozen other students, the mayor of the teens' hometown said Monday. Three Saudi vacationers were among the 21 people injured in the blast in Cairo's landmark Khan Al-Khalili bazaar late Sunday. The Saudi Embassy in Cairo identified the three Saudis as Munaji Ali Sarkhi, Muhammad Ali Sarkhi, and Muhammad Bakhit Nasser. The three young men were taken withminor injuries to Misr International Hospital, said Mutlaq Al-Mutairi, the embassy spokesman. “The minute we stepped out of the taxi and walked a few steps, an explosion rocked the area,” said Nasser, a 31-year-old teacher from Riyadh who was injured by shattered glass. On Monday, the Saudi Cabinet, chaired by King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosque, condemned the blast. Dr Abdul Aziz Mohieddin Khoja, Minister of Culture and Information, told SPA that King Abdullah has enquired about the health of the wounded Saudis and directed the Saudi Embassy in Egypt to follow up provide all the necessary care for them until they recover. Egyptian police have detained 11 people for questioning about the bomb, police sources said Monday. The detainees, all Egyptians, were in the area on Sunday evening around the time of the explosion and were taken into custody overnight and on Monday morning, they added. The sources did not say if the police had any hard evidence against the detainees. Eyewitness said that they saw two women in niqab with faces fully covered and a man who they suspect dropped the bombs. Tourism hit Sunday night's explosion from a homemade bomb raised worries in Egypt of wider damage to the country's vital tourism industry, which is already suffering from the global economic meltdown. The blast went off in the busy main square of the sprawling Khan Al-Khalili market, which was packed with tourists and Egyptians _ including the tour of more than 40 high school students from the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. A government spokesman said the bomb was placed under a stone bench in one of the cafes that line the square, where the French students were sitting in front of one of Cairo's most revered shrines, the Hussein mosque. The 17-year-old girl, who has not been identified, was killed and 24 people were wounding, including 17 French, said spokesman Magdy Radi, according to MENA news agency. The students were nearing the end of their trip when the attack occurred, said Patrick Balkany, mayor of Levallois-Perret. He said some of the students have serious wounds, and other students suffered psychological shock from the “horror” of the experience. “We are faced with a dreadful drama,” Balkany told RTL radio on Monday. France's prime minister, Francois Fillon, denounced what he called an “odious attack.” “There are people who want to destabilize Egypt, which is one of the moderate countries in the region,” Fillon told journalists in Paris. “It is an illustration of the violence that we must eradicate.” There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which was the first against tourists in Egypt in three years. Islamic extremists have in the past attacked tourists in an attempt to hurt Egypt's biggest source of income. Khan Al-Khalili – a 650-year-old bazaar of narrow, winding alleys – is one of the top tourist spots in Cairo, often crowded with foreigners coming to shop at its souvenir stores, hang out in its cafes or visit its numerous old mosques and Islamic monuments.
