Egypt: Seven killed in anti-Copts attack claimed by ISIS

Egypt : A Coptic priest speaks to a woman in a hospital in Beni Mazar, south of Cairo, on November 2, 2018 after a shooting on a bus carrying Copts in the Minya region.

At least seven people were killed and seven wounded on Friday in an ISI-sponsored attack on a bus carrying Christian Coptic worshipers, nearly a year after its latest attack on the community.

The Coptic faithful, who had just made a pilgrimage to the monastery of St. Samuel, in the province of Minya (some 200 km south of Cairo), were attacked near this place as they were returning home by bus.

A major security device prevented the evening access to the scene of the attack, in the desert, found journalists AFP.

"The authors of the ambush (...) on the road of" Monastery of St. Samuel "in Minya are fighters of the Islamic State," said the propaganda organ of the jihadists Amaq, in a statement released on Telegram messaging.

ISIS has already claimed a series of deadly attacks against Copts since December 2016, killing around 100 people. The last one dates back to the end of 2017.

"A bus carrying Copts was attacked near St. Samuel Monastery (...), leaving seven dead and seven wounded," said a security services source. On his Facebook page, the Coptic Church published the names of the dead, including two women.

"Shooting targeted a bus carrying a group of Copts during their return from the monastery of St. Samuel," said the Prosecutor General, announcing the opening of an investigation and sending a team on the spot.

- Assailants wanted -

When contacted by telephone, Bishop Makarios of Minya Province said that the bus was traveling to Sohag, 500 km south of Cairo.

According to state television, the security forces were in pursuit of the perpetrators of the attack.

"My condolences, with deep sadness, to the martyrs who have fallen today into the hands of traitors (...)", wrote President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Twitter.

"I wish the wounded a speedy recovery and I confirm our determination to continue to fight black terrorism and prosecute the perpetrators," he added.

Traveling to Sharm el-Sheikh (east), where he participates in a forum on youth, the head of state asked the audience to observe a minute of silence in tribute to the victims.

The Ministers of Health and Social Solidarity left this event to travel to Minya.

The latest deadly attack on Coptic worshipers was in December 2017 when an IS jihadist killed nine people in a church in the southern suburbs of Cairo.

The black series has hit the Copts since the end of 2016. In December 2016, a suicide attack, claimed by the IS, against a church in Cairo, contiguous to St. Mark's Cathedral, seat of the pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church Tawadros II , had made 29 dead.

In May 2017, 28 Coptic pilgrims, many of them children, were shot dead in Minya by gunmen while traveling on a bus in the same area as Friday's attack.

Masked men had ordered Christians to get off the bus and abjure their faith before executing them.

Egypt responded to the attack by air strikes against jihadist camps in neighboring Libya.

- Target of choice -

In April, two more IS attacks, perpetrated by suicide bombers on two churches in Tanta and Alexandria (north), left 45 dead.

President Sissi then declared a state of emergency. It has been constantly renewed since then.

Moreover, under the threat of extremists, dozens of Coptic families fled in February the North Sinai area, the scene of an IS insurgency.

The extremists have regularly attacked the security forces, especially since the army dismissed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Hundreds of police and soldiers were killed in five years of clashes in a region completely cordoned off and totally inaccessible to the press.

In February 2018, the army launched a major offensive against the jihadists in Sinai. In October, she claimed in this operation a record of more than 450 jihadists killed.

The Coptic community is the largest and oldest Christian community in the Middle East, with about 10 percent of the estimated 100 million Egyptians.

Copts are a prime target for IS jihadists and extremist Islamists. They accused them of supporting President Sissi after the latter, then head of the army, had dismissed Mohamed Morsi.

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