Man held over Egyptian bus attack

ASSIUT (Reuter) - Egyptian police detained a 17- year-old school student suspected of involvement in a Muslim militant attack on a tourist bus in the southern Nile valley. A British woman, Sharon Hill, was killed and two British men were wounded last Wednesday when Muslim militants ambushed a safari bus near Dayrut, 170 miles south of Cairo.

Security sources said the student was being questioned after several tourists from the bus picked him out from photographs as the man they saw standing in the road whistling a signal to hidden gunmen. Police are still hunting two men they suspect of carrying out the shooting. One is the student's brother and the other is the brother of a militant killed on 6 October when he tried to throw a bomb from a train at security troops. The underground El-Gamaa el- Islamiya (the Islamic Group) claimed responsibility.

The British, US and Australian embassies yesterday warned their nationals to stay out of militant strongholds in upper Egypt.