Monday, January 24, 2011


Egypt says Palestinian group behind church attack

English.news.cn   2011-01-24 05:37:09FeedbackPrintRSS

CAIRO, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Interior Minister Habib al- Adly said on Sunday that a Palestinian group linked to al-Qaida was behind the bombing of a church in Alexandria that killed more than 21 people on New Year's Eve.
In a televised address celebrating the National Police Day, Al-Adly named the group as the Army of Islam, a radical Islamic Palestinian terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip.
There are "conclusive evidence indicating the Gaza-based group was behind the planning and conducting of the attack that seized the lives of many Egyptians," the top security official said.
He added that the group had recruited Egyptians, but that could not conceal the role of this group in terrorist acts.
However, a source from the Army of Islam on Sunday denied Egypt 's accusation that it was behind the deadly church blast, saying that "the Army has no relation to the explosion."
The Egyptian ministry said an Egyptian man had been suspected of assisting the group in carrying out the attack.
Ahmad Ibrahim, born in 1984 in Alexandria, admitted during the police investigations that he had traveled many times to Gaza in 2008. He met many members from the Army of Islam group and admired their thoughts, Egypt's official MENA news agency quoted a security source as saying.
The same group asked him last year via the internet to locate important Christians and Jewish worshiping places in Egypt to conduct a terrorist operation, it said.
In October, he sent information about the possibility of attacking three worshiping places in Egypt, including the Saints Church and sent many photos of the church to the group. The Army of Islam group had asked him to provide their members with a place for accommodation and hire a car to facilitate their mission, but Ahmad suggested to conduct the attack traditionally by committing suicide.
Addressing the Police Day, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he will not tolerate whoever tries to undermine the national unity and to drive a wedge between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Mubarak stressed he will "not be lenient with any sectarian strife from either side" and will firmly confront the perpetrators by the law.
The president vowed to confront, defeat terrorism and track down terrorists inside and outside the country.
The suicide bombing attack outside the al-Qiddissin (Saints) Church in Alexandria, which killed more than 21 and injured nearly one hundred, was the deadliest attack against Christians in Egypt in more than a decade, which triggered the fears of sectarian violence in the Muslim majority country.
The fatal church attack was followed by a train shooting on Jan. 11 by an Egyptian policeman, killing a Coptic Christian and injuring five others. The Egyptian Ministry of Interior reaffirmed on Saturday it was not a sectarian act.
The Army of Islam firstly appeared in 2006, when it joined Islamic Hamas movement in capturing an Israeli soldier near the Gaza Strip. A year later, Hamas took over Gaza by force and its ties with the Army of Islam sagged due to security, religious and ideological differences.
The group was behind the kidnapping of Alan Johnston, a BBC reporter in Gaza, in 2007
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