[AP] A bomb exploded in a church north of Cairo that was packed with Palm Sunday worshippers, killing at least 26 people and wounding 71 others, officials said.The attack in the Nile Delta town of Tanta was the latest in a series of assaults on Egypt's Christian minority, which makes up around 10 percent of the population and has been repeatedly targeted by Islamic extremists. It comes just weeks before Pope Francis is due to visit the Arab world's most populous country.
CBC TV showed footage from inside the Mar Girgis church, where a large number of people gathered around what appeared to be lifeless, bloody bodies covered with papers. Regional Deputy Health Minister Mohammed Sharshar confirmed the toll.
No one immediately claimed the attack, which comes a week before Easter.
Pope Francis decried the bombing, expressing "deep condolences to my brother, Pope Tawadros II, the Coptic church and all of the dear Egyptian nation." Word of the bombing came as Francis himself was marking Palm Sunday in St. Peter's Square.
Grand Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, head of Egypt's Al-Azhar -- the leading center of learning in Sunni Islam -- likewise condemned the attack, calling it a "despicable terrorist bombing that targeted the lives of innocents."
The attack adds to fears that Islamic extremists who have long been b
| Update from The Times of Israel at 9:55 a.m. EDT: |
Interior ministry says jacket wallah carried out Alexandria attack in attempt to target Coptic Pope Tawadros II.
The Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
terror group grabbed credit for bombing two Egyptian churches on Sunday in the deadliest attacks on the country’s Christian minority in recent memory.
"Islamic State squads carried out the attacks on two churches in Tanta and Alexandria," said the group’s Amaq News Agency in a statement published on social media accounts.
The two bombing attacks, in which at least 37 people were killed, appeared to be coordinated, with the first going off at a Coptic church north of Cairo Sunday morning, followed by a second kaboom at a church in the coastal city of Alexandria in the afternoon.
According to the Health Ministry, at least 11 people were killed and 33 maimed when a boom-mobile detonated outside the St. Mark’s Church in the coastal city of Alexandria.
Egypt’s interior ministry said that a suicide bomber was behind the second blast. The bomber tried to storm the church where Coptic Pope Tawadros II was leading a Palm Sunday service but went
kaboom!when police prevented him from entering, the ministry said in a statement.
| Update at 3:00 p.m. EDT: Al Ahram liveblogged the events of the day. Key bits: 3 police were killed blocking the St. Mark's Cathedral suicide bomber entry; total casualties from the Tanta attack are 29 dead and 71 wounded, for St. Mark's 18 dead while an earlier toll had 66 wounded for a total of 47 dead today. |