A group of European tourists and their guides snatched by armed bandits in a remote desert 10 days ago were freed unharmed in a pre-dawn raid by Egyptian special forces on Monday, officials said.
The group of 19 hostages - five Germans, five Italians, a Romanian and eight Egyptian drivers and tour guides - were flown into Cairo aboard an Egyptian military plane and taken for medical checks, state television said. The freed hostages, apparently in good health, were greeted and handed flowers as they walked unassisted across the tarmac.
Defence Minister Hussein Tantawi said "half of the kidnappers were eliminated" in the raid, the official MENA news agency reported.
"Just before dawn two helicopters flew in special forces from the elite Lightning Brigade who freed the hostages," an Egyptian security official told AFP, asking not to be named. "There was a gunfight during which half the around 35 kidnappers were killed and the rest escaped," he said.
About 150 Egyptian special forces had been sent to Sudan, he said, where Italian and German special forces were also on standby, with about 30 Egyptian special forces carrying out the operation. The hostages were snatched while on a safari in a lawless area of Egypt's south-western desert on September 19.
The kidnappers - whose identities remain unknown - had demanded a ransom but Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said no money had been paid and that Italian special forces had also been involved. "We cannot yet relate the dynamics (of the release) but we can deny with certainty the payment of any ransom," Frattini said on Italian television from Belgrade.
"It was a most professional operation, and obviously we thank our German friends who worked with us, as well as Egypt and Sudan," he said. "We should recognise that we obtained this result thanks to the professionalism and effectiveness of our secret services, our special forces," he said, without elaborating.