ISMAILIYA, Egypt (AFP) — Egypt has begun installing surveillance cameras to monitor traffic through the strategic Suez Canal after the killing of an Egyptian by a US Navy-chartered ship last week, an official told AFP on Friday.
The cameras, in addition to a radar system already deployed in the region, "will provide for closer surveillance of the canal and a better view" of maritime traffic, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Mohammed Moqtar Afifi was killed on Monday when the "Global Patriot" transport vessel chartered by the US Navy fired warning shots at a small boat trying to sell merchandise, as it waited to transit the Suez Canal.
US President George W. Bush called his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak on Thursday to express regret over the incident, in which two other Egyptians were wounded.
The Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, is Egypt's third-largest source of revenue after tourism and remittances from expatriate workers, and currently about 7.5 percent of global trade passes through the waterway.
The canal is also a key supply line for the US military in the Gulf, in particular Kuwait, and in Iraq.
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