CAIRO (AFP) - Cairo's southern suburb of Maadi is gripped with terror over the swirling rumours of a shadowy slasher on the loose who is targeting women.

With concrete information about the incidents hard to come by, Egyptians are weighing up rumours and hearsay -- much of it subsequently reprinted in the press -- about whether the attacker is an Islamic fundamentalist, deranged misogynist, political fabrication or even a combination of all three.

"It's no longer a question of going out with my friends. It's over, now I am just with papa and mama -- but by myself? Never!" said Marwa al-Rifai, a 17-year-old pharmacy student from Maadi.

What most reports agree on is that since the end of December, seven women have been stabbed by a dark-skinned man in his 20s in the Maadi suburb, whose richer areas are home to numerous embassies and many foreigners.

After a month of denials, deputy interior minister Major General Ahmed Dia Eddin was called before parliament on January 30 to explain what the police were doing about the stabber, and he confirmed that efforts involving hundreds of police were "ongoing."

Taking a characteristically broad approach to the problem, police have arrested hundreds of suspects, according Egyptian press reports.

The attacker does not seem to want to kill the women, but rather wound them in what a security source prudishly referred to as "sensitive places," namely the buttocks and breasts.

Much of the state-owned press has been quick to accuse women-hating Islamists of the attacks, saying that they were trying to frighten women into veiling themselves and staying at home -- though at least one victim herself wore a headscarf.

A store owner from the area maintained that the perpetrators were actually a gang of young men obsessed with American horror films, while another resident claimed the attacks are being fabricated to discredit security services.

Others believe that the goal is to terrify foreigners and wealthy Egyptians in Maadi, even though most of the attacks have occurred in impoverished parts of the suburb.

"Here there are only ordinary people, as well as Sudanese and Filipino immigrants," said one resident of the affected area.

Most people were reluctant to talk, however, with policemen on every street corner suspiciously eyeing passers-by and families of the victims saying they have been forbidden to speak to the press.

Even as speculation among Egyptians is rife, there have been plenty of suggestions about how to handle the problem. One letter to the daily English language Egyptian Gazette suggested that policewomen "trained to perfection in the martial arts" should prowl the streets of Maadi as "bait."

"She should be able to disarm and knock him out with well-aimed kung fu blows," suggested the letter.

This is not the first time Cairo has been seized by such stories. In February 2002, the upper middle class suburb of Heliopolis in north Cairo was convulsed with fear over another "ripper" targeting women.

One of the many panicked emails that circulated at the time warned that the victims were "young girls, teens, schoolgirls, young wives, university students of various ages and relatively young ladies, apparently good-looking or flashy girls or ladies who frequent discotheques."

Despite dozens of such reports, no deaths were ever confirmed, and in the end security services arrested a teenager for running a website disseminating the warnings -- after which the stories stopped.

"In the absence of reliable sources of information, the rumours can only multiply," lamented sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim of the American University in Cairo, adding that in many ways, security services are at fault.

"Instead of just saying 'there have been attacks, we will undertake an investigation,' the authorities denied it was taking place," he said. "When they finally announced an investigation they had lost all credibility."

Such are the powers of these rumours that even diplomats, supposedly safe in their tree-lined neighbourhoods on the other side of the suburb, are feeling the effects of the "Maadi stabber."

"My wife and daughter no longer dare go out," grumbled one Western diplomat who preferred not to be named. "So I'm the one who has to walk the dog."

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My sister in law actually told me about this 2 weeks back. She has started coming back from work early since she works in the Maadi area....Kinda scary...

it also shows there is a time lag between it happening and it hitting the news. i'm surprised more have not commented on this item.

Wow....scary. We stayed in Maadi during my first trip to Egypt. Danged fundamentalists.

Unfortunately it's true I have Egyptian TV so I see the news and it's true ..My sister are scared to death esp my youngest her college is very close to this area and I am really worried about her every day she goes to school her college is like 2 hours Far from our house ...I hope they will catch him soooooon