FUNDAMENTALISTS SEE SHARM AS A SODOM ON SEA. Sharm was a highly symbolic target in many ways. Not only was it the centre of several summits on the Palestine issue and a city in which Mubarak himself owned property, but perhaps most decisively it was a city where those with money could enjoy a degree of social freedom unimaginable to most working class Egyptians. The visibility of these freedoms outraged hardcore islamists who would prefer Egypt to return to its' medieval past. It is easy to find examples on the internet of those who reject everything that Sharm stands for. One man asks Islamweb.net if it is permissible to build a tourist boat for use in Sharm and elicits a cool response "There is total freedom therefore dissoluteness, fornication and adultery, alcohol, and other forbidden matters. A person who goes there is not safe from not committing what makes Allah angry......It is a place of dissolute people." Click here to see the full reply. Or as another example look at this email to Islamonline from a woman worried that it is haram for her husband to work for a company constructing hotels in Sharm see Lamya's Question And here is one Egyptian's comments on seeing the recent Red Sea Riviera ads by the Egyptian government. "It showed women in bikinis swimming with dolpins, a red ferrari, poolside/hotels, a beach, the sea, close up of a woman in bathing suit and high heels focusing on her legs. When the advert ended and it showed you this was EGYPT....my mouth dropped." See the full discussion on Egyptsearch.com forum However there was one internet comment on Sharm posted on an islamist website which GayEgypt.com uncovered that seemed more positive, if with some unfortunate, though entirely inadvertent, ambiguity. It was posted on the Ummah.com forum. Message 33 and dated 30 June 2005. The poster, who chose a cartoon wolf (though not a scary looking one) as his profile, remarked "I just came back from Egypt - I went to Sharm El Sheikh and Cairo - what a wicked place to go on holiday, definitely recommend that.................. May Allah be with us." The "May Allah be with us" ending was a slogan he seemed to post routinely on all his messages and there was certainly nothing to suggest that the adjective wicked was meant to be deliberately ambiguous. It's good to see that some practising muslims are happy to recommend the innocent pleasures of a such a great resort. View the original posting here. THE SHARM ATTACKS ARE A REMINDER THAT SINAI IS EGYPT'S ACHILLEES HEEL FOR TERRORISTS with favourable terrain, some sympathetic locals, the extensive local use of explosives for quarying and construction and sprawling hotel complexes with easily permeable perimeters. See our 2002 article warning of future Sinai attacks click here ! WE SAY Please tourists, all you gay guys and girls from Europe, Japan and elsewhere, keep visiting Sharm El Sheikh and Eygpt for 2 good reasons. 1. To defy the bombers. Please don't distance yourself from Egyptians. Almost all the killings in recent years have been by random bomb or gun attacks. Please continue to make friendships with Egyptians. Not only do we ordinary Egyptians love to have the chance to meet you but many poorer Egyptians depend on you. Don't give in to the bombers ! 2. The chance of dying in a terrorist attack in Egypt, even taking into account the recent upsurge in violence of recent years, is still not much greater than one in a million. That's about the same chance of being killed by an electric toaster ! If you're not going to visit Egypt for safety reasons then throw away your toaster too ! NEED TO CONTACT A GAY LOVED ONE BUT CAN'T GET THROUGH ? USE OUR FREE SHARM EL SHEIKH MESSAGE BOARD - CLICK HERE ! GAYEGYPT.COM CAME ACROSS THIS CALIFORNIAN NEWS CHANNEL THAT SEEMED TO THINK SHARM IS A CAIRO RESORT 88 Dead in Cairo Resort Car Bombings HOW WOULD THEY HAVE REACTED IF WE'D CALLED NEW YORK A CALIFORNIAN RESORT ? Please will someone tell them that about 500 kilometres separate Sharm and Cairo and getting stuck behind those painfully slow lorries makes it the equivalent of 1000 miles of American expressway. Their headline reminds me of some American tourists in Cairo who asked for directions to the beach ! ABDULLAH AZZAM BRIGADES who also claimed responsibility for the terrorist attacks in Taba and Cairo have claimed on the internet that they are responsible for the Sharm blasts. However there are also other possile culprits. Another group calling itself the Mujahideen of Egypt has also claimed responsibility. The same group had also earlier claimed responsibility for the attacks in Cairo in April. ABU HAFS AL MASRI BRIGADES BEHIND BOTH LONDON AND EGYPT BOMBINGS ? After much recent speculation that the Abu Hafs Al Masri Brigades splinter Al-Qaeda group may be responsible for the London bombings, some commentators may soon start to speculate the Brigades may have a hand in the Sinai bombings too. The founder Abu Hafs was an Egyptian (believed to have been killed in Afghanistan) and he is thought to have been one of two key figures behind the Luxor bombings in 1997. There is certainly a coincidence in timings between the bombings in London and Sharm and of course Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is a "frequent flyer" to the resort and now comes the news that the Egyptian authorities are hunting six Pakistani men. Egypt has come under recent criticism for recognising Iraq and their first envoy to Baghdad was kidnapped a few weeks ago. At the same time Sharm is seen as a decadent and degenerate playground for western and Saudi women and gays. A sort of Las Vegas on the Red Sea but only a short travel distance from Arabia's holy cities of Mecca and Medina. From Sharm you can even see the coastal cliffs of Saudi Arabia just across the beautiful shimmering waters. Latest news 22 May 2012: Cairo psychiatrist claims he can "cure" 70 to 75 per cent of gay teenagers.