They needed permission to be there as the rule is now, set about six months ago, in order to leave the road generally you need permission for this Abu Mahara [as heard] dune or the other dunes on the north of the road, Al Ghorabi dunes, both need permission. I have been there before, the new rule is to obtain permission. You get permission there [in Bahariya]. There is an office that belongs to the military coastguard [as heard] and usually a tourism company should go and get the official permission showing the official company papers showing they are allowed to take tourists. Then they get a permission and they know which guys you are taking and they even send a security personnel with you.

I assume if they did not have permission like they are saying they would not have had security personnel with them. Normally you would assume they had permission and a security personnel. It is not possible they had security personnel but no permission, but what has been happening the last couple of months - and this was told to me by one of the guides on Bahariya - is that they coordinate with the military personnel there, that they have a group and they are taking them to a specific area in the white desert and the military knows they are going to this area and they just coordinate verbally, without official a permission. But they know that they are there and generally then it is not dangerous to be there. They have been doing that on a friendly basis for the last couple of months. But in this area [where attack happened] it is not possible - this was done only for the white desert.

Many guides work like freelancers and they don’t have companies so they get oral permission from the security personnel because they know them and they trust that they won’t take the tourists to other dangerous areas.