Sharm el Sheik, Egypt ? At an airport packed with foreigners frantic to go, Reena Gurm was horrified when her tour operator said her flight had been delayed a day. Even worse, he offered to put her up in a hotel for the night – back in the bomb-shaken resort she was trying to leave.

“What if something happens to us on the way?” the British woman screamed at the operator. “I want to go home. If (the hotel) is in Naama Bay, I am not going.”

It was a day of fear and misery in Sharm el-Sheik after a series of overnight bombings shook the resort and killed at least 88 people. In Naama Bay, Sharm’s main strip of hotels, a beach promenade usually teeming with tourists and loud with music was silent Saturday night, except for a lone shop playing mournful Quranic verses.

Egypt began searching for those behind the bombings, which went off nearly simultaneously at 1:15 a.m., leveling the reception of a luxury hotel and tearing apart a cafe full of Egyptian workers.

‘Whole world disturbed’

Investigators said they were trying to determine whether foreigners carried out the string of blasts. There were conflicting claims of responsibility – one from an al-Qaida-linked organization, another from a previously unknown and apparently local group.

Coming after two rounds of explosions that hit London’s subways and buses, the Sharm attack reinforced a global fear that militants can strike anywhere.

“The whole world is getting very disturbed. The frequency (of terrorist attacks) seems to be mounting,” said Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who chairs the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference.

President Bush telephoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to offer his support.

Italian tourists photograph the damage at the bombed Ghazala Gardens Hotel in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik. Explosions ripped through the resort Saturday, killing at least 88 people.

“Standing together with the rest of the civilized world, we will win the conflict against this global scourge,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Tourists try to flee

At hotels across Sharm late Saturday, lobbies were jammed with tourists with their baggage. At the nearby international airport, foreigners lined up, with hundreds of Italians trying to get flights out. Some were prepared to wait overnight in the airport rather than stay at hotels.

“I wanted to stay for all the summer, but now I’m going home,” said 27-year-old Stefano Alquati from Rimini, Italy, who travels each year to Sharm. “It’s not good to stay here. … Sharm el-Sheik is finished, the business and all. I saw the panic.”

In all, 88 people were confirmed dead, mostly Egyptians, said Saeed Abdel Fattah, manager of the Sharm el-Sheik International Hospital where the victims were taken. At least 119 people were also injured, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said.

Among the dead were two Britons, two Germans, an Italian and a Czech, according to Abdel Fattah and officials from the victims’ nations.

The attacks were well-coordinated. The car bombs – apparently driven by suicide attackers – detonated almost simultaneously at the 176-room luxury Ghazala Gardens and also two miles away in a minibus lot in the Old Market, ravaging a coffee shop frequented by Egyptians who work at Sharm’s resorts.

A third bomb, hidden in a sack, went off about the same time near a boardwalk along the beach where tourists often stroll at night.

At the Ghazala, construction workers cleared away the flattened reception lobby after emergency teams apparently gave up the search for survivors after a car packed with 660 pounds of explosives barreled into the hotel’s driveway and detonated.

Officials said the death toll was not expected to rise significantly.

Security holes

The attackers also pinpointed holes in the resort’s security: The Ghazala is one of the few hotels with a reception area easily accessible from the main road, and the Old Market has no security checks, unlike parking areas along the main hotel strip, a security official involved in the investigation told The Associated Press.

Egyptian police detained at least 20 people for questioning, including local Bedouin tribesmen near the scene of the bombings, although none were currently suspected of involvement, said police officials speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

One security official involved in the investigation said some witnesses told police the bombers “did not appear to be locals.” DNA samples were being analyzed, he said, although he would not elaborate if those samples belonged to attackers. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation continued.

Police were also exploring links to simultaneous bomb attacks last October on hotels in Taba and Ras Shitan, about 120 miles north of Sharm. Those bombings killed 34 people.

Several hours after the Sharm attacks, a group claiming ties to al-Qaida took responsibility for the bombings in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site. The group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, al-Qaida, in Syria and Egypt, was one of two extremist groups that also claimed responsibility for the October bombings.

Hours later, a previously unknown group calling itself the Holy Warriors of Egypt faxed a statement to newspapers disputing the al-Qaida claim and saying it had carried out Saturday’s attack. It listed the names of five people it said were the bombers.

The authenticity of the two statements could not be immediately verified.

Meanwhile, the group al-Qaida in Iraq released an Internet video that appeared to highlight one reason why militants might target Sharm: the presence of Israeli tourists.

The video did not mention the Sharm bombings nor claim responsibility. It showed the interrogation of Egypt’s top envoy to Iraq, Ihab al-Sherif, whom the group kidnapped and said it killed earlier this month.

In the video, the diplomat was asked about Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which allows Israelis to travel without visas to the resort-dotted east coast of Sinai, designated as “Part C.”

“From which point does Part C start?” a questioner asked al-Sherif. “From Taba to Sharm el-Sheik,” he replied.

“If you seek an evidence on how the Jews are desecrating the land of Muslims, contemplate the words of the Egyptian ambassador,” said a statement, posted with the video on an Islamic Web forum.