ALEXANDRIA, Egypt |
(Reuters) - A bomb killed at least 21 people outside a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria early on New Year's Day and the Interior
Ministry said a foreign-backed suicide bomber may have been responsible.
Dozens of people were wounded by the blast, which scattered body parts, destroyed cars and smashed windows. The attack prompted Christians to protest on the streets, and
some Christians and Muslims hurled stones at each other.
Egypt has stepped up security around churches, banning cars from parking outside them, since an al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq issued a threat
against the Church in Egypt in November.
Egypt's leaders were quick to call for unity, wary of any upsurge in sectarian strife or other tension as the country approaches a presidential
election due in September amid some uncertainty about whether President
Hosni Mubarak, 82, will run.
Mubarak promised in a televised address that terrorists would not destabilize Egypt or divide Christians and Muslims. He said the attack "carries
evidence of the involvement of foreign fingers" and vowed to pursue the
perpetrators.
A statement on an Islamist website posted about two weeks before the blast called for attacks on Egypt's churches, listing among them the one hit. No group
was named in the statement.
President Barack Obama described the bombing as a "barbaric and heinous act" and said the United States, a major ally, was ready to help Cairo in
responding to it.
The Muslim Brotherhood, seen as Egypt's biggest opposition group and which decades ago renounced violence as means to power in Egypt, condemned the attack.
"There are people who want this country to be unstable, and all fingers point to outside hands being behind this incident," senior group member
Mohamed el-Katatni said.
The circumstances of the attack, compared with other incidents abroad, "clearly indicates that foreign elements undertook planning and
execution," the Interior Ministry said.
"It is likely that the device which exploded was carried by a suicide bomber who died among others," it said in a statement. State media had
earlier blamed a car bomb.
The embassy of the United States, a close ally of Egypt, expressed condolences to victims of the "terrible event." Other Western and
regional states also condemned the bombing.
An Iraqi deputy interior minister, Hussein Kamal, urged Arab states to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and to help stop Arab militants
training in Iraq and then returning home.
COMMUNAL FRUSTRATIONS
Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin said 21 people had been confirmed killed so far and 97 were wounded, the official Middle East
News Agency reported.
Replies
So much for that "Religion Death Cult of Peace"
These "people", and I use that term VERY LOOSELY, are nothing but vermin, and should likewise be exterminated from the face of the earth. In fact, they are lower than vermin. What the entire Middle East, exclusive of Israel of course, needs is a 50 foot high built all the way around it, the whole area filled with their own slimy oil and it set ABLAZE. You want global warming, ManBearPig, we'll GIVE YOU Global Warming!!!
Twana
I know things are going to get much worse before to much longer. The only thing we can do is to prepare for it and prepare for the worse.
Twana
That is something to think about the last thing this country needs is to be over run by this type of culture.
"And finally, I accuse the liberal intellectuals, both Muslim and Christian who, whether complicit, afraid, or simply unwilling to do orsay anything that may displease “the masses”, have stood aside, finding
it sufficient to join in one futile chorus of denunciation following
another, even as the massacres spread wider, and grow more horrifying."
She said it all right there...