Egypt sightseeing may prove fatal

An armed Egyptian tour guide took four German tourists hostage and threatened yesterday to kill them unless his estranged wife brings the couple's children back from Germany. ''I have one solution only - either my children are returned to me or I die,'' Ibrahim Ali el-Sayyed Moussa, the kidnapper, told The Associated Press over a cellular telephone. ''I shall not die alone. (Germany) will lose four with me.'' Asked if he meant he would kill the hostages, he said, ''Yes.'' The four male hostages told German authorities they were in good condition but that Moussa was armed with a handgun and some kind of explosive, said German Foreign Ministry spokesman Andreas Michaelis in Berlin. Moussa, 45, kidnapped the four Monday in an area south of the ancient city of Luxor, police said. It is not for the first time that foreign tourists were attacked in Egypt. This time, the trouble-maker seems not to have been guided by Islamic fundamentalism. But it a poor consolation for the victims, anyhow.