CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing

bombing in Egypt

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2025
Entity authorityQ2691739 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing was a terrorist attack that took place at 6:30 p.m. local time on 22 February 2009 in Khan el-Khalili, a souq in eastern Cairo, Egypt, killing a 17-year-old French teenager and injuring 24 other people. It was the first of the February 2009 Cairo terrorist attacks.

Attack details

The attack took place just after dark in front of a cafe crowded with people gathering to watch a televised football match. There were conflicting reports that the bomb was thrown from a balcony or from a motorcycle, but security officials reported that the bomb had exploded under a bench in a garden in the square. A second bomb failed to detonate and was defused.

The bombs weighed 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb) and contained nails and metal fragments. A 17-year-old French girl, who was among a group of 54 teenagers from Levallois-Perret near Paris, was killed. Seventeen French, one German and three Saudi tourists, as well as three Egyptians, were wounded. Early reports suggest the explosive devices were "primitive".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing” is bombing in Egypt. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Khan, el-Khalili and bombing, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Khan, el-Khalili and bombing is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “bombing in Egypt” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2691739. Authority coordinates are 30.047, 31.263. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing primary sources, 2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing archive and Khan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “2009 Khan el-Khalili bombing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.