The Egyptian Interior Ministry said Sunday that the suicide bomber in the April 7 attack in Cairo's historic area of Al Azhar had links to an extremist group.

The ministry said in a statement that security organs have determined the dimensions and circumstances behind the attack and the culprit, Hassan Bashandi who was an engineering student from Zagazig northeast of Cairo, was linked to an extremist group which involves four members.

Three of the extremists have already been arrested, while the fourth suspect Ashraf Said Yussef, a student at the Cairo University Faculty of Agriculture, escaped and is still on the run, added the statement.

Akram Fawzi, 35, Reda Ahmed, 19, and Tareq Ali, 34, were nabbed over the past few days in the Cairo district and north of thecapital, in Qaliubia.

Fawzi was described as "the brain who masterminded and financed the attacks and provided his accomplices with compact discs (CDs)explaining how to manufacture explosive devices". According to the investigations, Bashandi had links to the four-member group, with each member playing a role in enlisting and training him and preparing the explosive device that was used in the heinous crime.

The bomb was made in a small wood workshop in the Marg area, outside Cairo. The workshop was searched and other bomb components were found, said the statement.

On April 7, Bashandi detonated a homemade explosive in an alleyway of ancient Islamic Cairo near the famed Khan el-Khalilisouk popular with foreign tourists, killing two French and an American citizen, while the bomber himself was blown to pieces.

(Xinhua News Agency April 18, 2005)