ISMAILIA, Egypt - At least one person was killed on Tuesday in a gun battle between Egyptian police and Bedouin accused of helping bomb three tourist resorts on Egypt´s Red Sea coast in October, official sources said. Thirty-four people, including 12 Israelis, were killed in the October 7 attacks.

An Egyptian Interior Ministry statement said later that one suspect, named as fugitive Mohammed Abdel Rahman Badawi, was killed and one policeman was wounded.

The ministry said Badawi had taken part in the attack on the Badia camp near Nuweiba, one of the three resorts hit on October 7 in the simultaneous bombings.

Two earlier separate police sources had said five people - three policemen, one of the suspects and a bystander - died in the fighting in hills near the town of Ras Sudr.

Tuesday´s fighting took place in the hills near Ain Sudr, inland from the west coast town of Ras Sudr and about 185 kilometers (115 miles) east of Cairo, it said.

The Interior Ministry statement said police started searching the hilly area on Monday evening after receiving information that fugitives were hiding out in caves there.

"These elements began by opening fire on a police vehicle in an attempt to break out of the security cordon, which forced an exchange of fire," it said.

Badawi was found to be carrying an automatic weapon and a pistol, it added.

He was not one of the two men named by police in October as the surviving bombers. Two other bombers were killed in the resort of Taba when their bomb went off early, they said.

Police said in October they had arrested five men, all Sinai Bedouin, as accomplices in the bombings. Most of them were from the north coast town of El Arish, near the Israeli border.

They named the two fugitive bombers at the time as Mohammed Ahmed Saleh Fulayfel and Hammad Gumaa.

Police had concentrated their investigations on the El Arish area, where human rights groups say they have detained up to 2,500 people for questioning for varying periods, subjecting many of them to torture. Egyptian authorities deny the torture. (© Copyright 2004 Haaretz. 02/01/05)