Radical Muslim groups moved just as rapidly to distance themselves from the Dahab attacks, which killed 24 people. The leader of Egypt’s banned Muslim brotherhood condemned them as “aggression on human souls created by God.”

The militant Palestinian Hamas organization called them a “criminal attack which is against all human values.”

Many frightened tourists fled Sinai coastal resorts where two previous bomb attacks — like the Dahab blasts — bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida-linked groups that appear to have a free hand to continue operations in the barren, backward and extremely rugged Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian authorities — despite massive sweeps by thousands of troops and hundreds of arrests after each previous Sinai attack — appeared increasingly frustrated by the ease with which terrorists continue to hit the country’s vital tourism industry. It brought in $6.4 billion in 2005 and is the top source of foreign exchange.

“This incident is addressed to the whole of Egypt, there is no reason for it other than an attempt to destroy the economy of Egypt by attacking tourism,” said Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif as he visited blast victims in a Sharm el-Sheik hospital.

President Hosni Mubarak, who oversees an already-stagnant economy with unemployment rising in lockstep with the population explosion, called the attack a “sinful terrorist action.”

The attacks came just one day after al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had urged Muslims to support al-Qaida in what he called a war against Islam.

Egyptian officials have said local people were behind the previous bombings in the Sinai, but outside security experts say Sinai’s extremists seem either al-Qaida linked or at least aligned with its views.

Security officials, who refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release the information, said the remains of three men recovered from the scene of the blasts were so badly torn apart that they could have been suicide attackers.

Arabs throughout the Middle East voiced outrage, signaling a growing backlash as fellow Muslims increasingly bear the brunt of terrorist attacks. Of the 24 dead in Dahab, 21 were Egyptians.

“I don’t think these people care” if Muslims or Arabs are killed. “They’ll carry on at any price,” said Lara Darwazah, a 31-year-old music teacher in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

All three Sinai bombings were timed to Egyptian national holidays when resorts were especially crowded with local tourists as well as foreigners who flock to the seaside towns, the world-renowned beaches and extraordinary reefs.

Taba and Ras Shitan in the northern Sinai near the Israeli border were hit and 34 killed in October 2004, a day before the holiday marking the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Last July 23 — Egypt’s national day — suicide bombers killed 64 people, mainly tourists, in Sharm el-Sheik on the southern tip of the Sinai.

Monday’s Dahab bombings occurred on the eve of Sinai Liberation Day, when Egypt regained full control of the peninsula from Israel in 1986. The tourist population was swollen further by the coincidence of the long Coptic Christian Easter weekend and an ancient Egyptian holiday to mark the start of spring.

Egypt’s Sinai resorts are a tempting and virtually made-to-order target for Islamic militants who were jailed by Mubarak or fled to safer territory and became even more radical_ witness Egyptian physician Ayman al-Zawheri’s migration to Afghanistan and the No. 2 place in al-Qaida.

The isolated and desolate peninsula also has become a favored Israeli holiday destination, making bombings there both a symbolic attack on Israelis and an assault to undermine Mubarak’s authority and rattle his tenuous economy.

Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said it was not immediately clear if the attack could have been carried out by a group as organized as those who detonated the earlier bombs. He said the explosives were different than those used in Sharm el-Sheik or Taba.

The blasts were so powerful that police divers worked Tuesday to retrieve body parts from the shallow waters of the sea, as workers swept shards of glass from the streets. At one spot near the beach, two black sandals lay in a pool of blood on a wooden footbridge.

Nearby, outside the supermarket where one blast occurred, a tiny shoe covered in blood lay on top of a baby stroller. Witnesses said the stroller belonged to foreign twin infants who they said looked European.

<B>Three more explosions strike in Egypt</B>

The string of explosions rattled Egypt just two days after terrorists exploded three bombs at a Sinai beach resort, killing 24 people, mostly Egyptians.

Security officials said the suicide attackers died in the strike on the peacekeeping base, and there were conflicting reports on the wounded. It was not immediately known if there were casualties in the Nile Delta explosion.

Egypt’s official news agency confirmed the Sinai attack was a suicide bombing, and a spokesman for the Multinational Force and Observers said he did not believe any troops were hurt but was awaiting a final report.

Other security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, said they believed at least one New Zealander and one Norwegian attached to the multinational force were wounded along with two Egyptian policemen.

The attackers hit outside the air base where the force is headquartered in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, just 10 miles from the border with Gaza.