2006 Dahab bombings

On 24 April 2006, at about 19:15 local time, a series of three bombs exploded in tourist areas of Dahab, a resort on the Gulf of Aqaba coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The date coincided with Sham el Nessim, a public holiday marking the spring festival, when the town was busy with visitors. One blast occurred in or near the Nelson restaurant, another near the Aladdin café — both located on either side of a bridge in the town — and a third near the Ghazala market.

The Dahab attacks followed a pattern of bombings in the Sinai Peninsula in preceding years, including the 23 July 2005 attacks in Sharm el-Sheikh and the 6 October 2004 bombings in Taba.

At least 24 people were killed, most of them Egyptian nationals, along with a German, a Lebanese, a Russian, a Swiss national, and two Hungarians. Approximately 80 people were injured, among them tourists from Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Accounts of responsibility for the bombings varied and shifted in the aftermath. The governor of South Sinai initially suggested the blasts might have been suicide attacks. Egypt's interior minister, Habib Adly, later stated that the devices were nail bombs detonated by timers, while Egyptian state television reported that the bombs had been set off remotely. Subsequent reporting suggested the blasts may indeed have been suicide attacks, allegedly carried out by Bedouins, consistent with patterns seen in the earlier Sinai attacks. A report by the International Crisis Group assessed that the bombings appeared to have targeted the government of President Hosni Mubarak, and stemmed in part from deep resentment among local Sinai residents over perceived discrimination in jobs and housing under government programs.

Egyptian security officials attributed the attacks to an organization identified as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad.