CAIRO, Feb 1: Egyptian security forces were involved in a fierce gun battle on Tuesday with a group of Bedouin suspected of links to last year's deadly bombings of Sinai resorts, one of whom was killed, security sources said.

A policeman was also injured in the firefight in central Sinai, according to an interior ministry statement, which identified the dead man as Mohammed Abdel Rahman Badawi. It said Rahman Badawi was a suspect in the bombing of one of two tourist camps in Nuweiba, south of Taba on the Sinai's east coast. He was armed with a rifle and pistol, the ministry added.

Security forces, acting on a tip off, had deployed in the mountainous central Sinai region where the men were believed to have holed up and sealed it off in preparation for a raid, security sources said.

But the suspects pre-empted the attack and opened fire on them before fleeing further into the mountains. "They opened fire on a police vehicle, resulting in an exchange of fire," the interior ministry said.

It added that security forces were pursing the "fugitives". Human rights groups said security forces arrested thousands of suspects in the wake of the attacks on Oct 7 on the Taba Hilton and the two camps in Nuweib that killed 34 people and wounded 105, many of them Israeli tourists.

But authorities have announced the arrests of only a handful of suspects. The explosion at the four-star Hilton was believed to have been caused by a powerful car bomb detonated near the entrance to the hotel, destroying an entire wing of the 10-storey building. -AFP