Egypt mosque attack: death toll raised to 200

[DJKeefy]

At least 200 people have been killed and scores more injured in a bomb and gun assault on a mosque in Egypt’s north Sinai.

The attack was one of the deadliest in the country in recent memory, marking a major escalation in Cairo’s battle with regional insurgents. The death toll, reported by state media, rose repeatedly on Friday afternoon as more details emerged.

More than 50 ambulances ferried casualties from al-Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed, west of the city of Arish, to nearby hospitals. At least 125 people were injured.

A bomb ripped through the mosque as Friday prayers were finishing, then militants in four off-road vehicles approached and opened fire on worshippers, a military source told the Guardian.

No group claimed responsibility for the assault, but it was the deadliest yet in a region where for the past three years Egyptian security forces have battled an Islamic State insurgency that has killed hundreds of police and soldiers.



An eyewitness said by phone that he ran to towards the scene after hearing a big blast and shots being fired. Local people rushed to find their relatives, as bodies were wrapped in cloth were laid out on the road, the witness added.

A local resident whose relatives were at the scene told Reuters that the gunmen shot at people as they left the mosque, and also at the ambulances.

Local people said some of the worshippers were sufis – regarded by hardliners such as Islamic State as apostates because they revere saints and shrines, which for Islamists is tantamount to idolatry.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, a former armed forces commander who presents himself as a bulwark against Islamist militants in the region, convened an emergency security meeting soon after the attack, state television said.

Militants have mostly targeted security forces in their attacks since bloodshed in the Sinai worsened after 2013 when Sisi, then an armed forces commander, led the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But jihadis have also targeted local Sinai tribes that are working with the armed forces, branding them traitors for cooperating with the army and police.

In July this year, at least 23 soldiers were killed when suicide car bombs hit two military checkpoints in the Sinai, an attack claimed by Islamic State.

Militants have tried to expand beyond the largely barren, desert Sinai Peninsula into Egypt’s heavily populated mainland, hitting Coptic Christian churches and pilgrims.

In May, gunmen attacked a Coptic group travelling to a monastery in southern Egypt, killing 29.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... ns-reports

[Horus]

Egyptian state media is saying the death toll is at least 155 people + 120 injured

[DJKeefy]

First post updated

[HEPZIBAH]

Horrific!

[pinkmagic]

So sad. What utter b*stards.

[newcastle]

Sisi has sent his condolences and vowed that the police and security forces will avenge the victims.

Better to have protected them

[pinkmagic]

I don't think it's as simple as that Newcastle.
No one knows when or where a terror attack will happen and to the best of my knowledge, mosques, in Egypt anyway, have not been a target up until now.

[newcastle]

Mosques frequented by Sufi adherents are an obvious target for takfiri extremists. Their propaganda in the region has specifically referred to Sufi whom they regard as apostates.

I haven't seen any reports that any security forces were noticeably involved in this latest atrocity. Where were they? How was any challenge to the assailants so late that they were able to fire on ambulances going to the mosque?

[A-Four]

This is a very sad for the people of Egypt, but then again more so for the religious faith of Islam, where at this time in history this 'great way of life' that I have always called it, is seriously beginnings to show extremism, when what is needed is a united tour de force in dealing with modern day thinking, where the Faith struggles to know which way it leans to either the West or the East, in truth it cannot remain in, the so called middle much longer.

I notice that the attack was made on Sufi Muslims, some would call a sect when in fact, it is the more sophisticated follows of the faith, and in the mainstream have always been a important part of religious thinking and teaching.

On a local note, years ago now, I was often invited to attend and watch Sufi dancing by the faithful at the central mosque in Gazerra WB, Luxor. It is performed somewhat differently to that by whirling Dervish of Konya, Central Turkey, it is slower where the person becomes one with the source of religious perfection, and as I can only describe as a trance state of mind. As a spectator that I was, a truly wonderful experience.

[HEPZIBAH]

I've only heard brief snippets on the radio of this massacre, and only saw a little bit of the BBC News at 10 report. What I haven't heard is what happened to the terrorists. Did they escape?

The loss of so many men of all ages, and no doubt some women and children, from a relatively small community will be greatly felt for many years to come. It is so difficult to even imagine, never mind understand, how daily life can go on when such atrocities take place.

[Major Thom]

Feel sorry for the people of Egypt having to suffer like this at the hands of what can only be described as terrorism, more worrying to think the Country has one of the biggest Armies in the World and is finding it hard to control North Sinai. (It maybe has a heavy amount of conscripts, or untrained soldiers, I know a couple who were on duty and for a few pounds paid their commander so they could attend a party on the West Bank) So there may lay one answer.
Lets hope one day will rear it's head as being human, I cannot think of any religion at all that promotes killing and murder. If you look at terrorism though its all born from religion of all kinds and the seat of such is born in corrupt Countries.

[carrie]

Well that must be one of your better posts MT can't understand a word.

[newcastle]

I don't think it's as simple as that Newcastle.
No one knows when or where a terror attack will happen and to the best of my knowledge, mosques, in Egypt anyway, have not been a target up until now.

They were warned :

"A week prior to Friday’s attack, members of Wilayat Sinai told villagers to stop performing Sufi rituals in and around the al-Rawda mosque, a local source told Mada Masr. The source added that local residents had expected an attack to occurr immintently, which made them close off a nearby road as a precautionary measure."

https://egyptianstreets.com/2017/11/24/ ... rth-sinai/

[Dusak]

Even though its a long haul from there to here, Luxor, the two friends that I had coming over in a few days for two weeks have cancelled, more willing to loose all the money than their lives, as the wife perceives the gamble. On my face book today I received a PM from friends, four of them, that they too have changed their destination, due not only to what happened yesterday, but what is happening to the Luxor area in general in their view of things after many years visiting. Another lost four weeks tourist revenue.

As for the soldiers paying for unofficial leave to attend a party, my friends brother was granted leave on three occasions for family weddings, and this, she says, is quite common, no ''payment'' is required for such things in the Armed forces here as they see the sense in keeping the troops happy with their three years compulsory time served.

[Horus]

It is worth noting that with regards to the proximity of the terrorist attack in the North Sinai, that Paphos is closer than Luxor (as the crow flies) by around 100 miles.

[Who2]

Army ? hmmm Bring the SAS they love working for foreign governments...

[A-Four]

We learn today from the B.B.C., less than 24 hours after this dreadful incident, that Sisi has bombed the s*** out of an area in Northern Sinai known as a terrorist base. If this is so, then why did he not use his special ground forces to take control of the area and capture such people, for intelligence purposes. I suppose, similar here to what the Dr is suggesting.

[DJKeefy]

We learn today from the B.B.C., less than 24 hours after this dreadful incident, that Sisi has bombed the s*** out of an area in Northern Sinai known as a terrorist base. If this is so, then why did he not use his special ground forces to take control of the area and capture such people, for intelligence purposes. I suppose, similar here to what the Dr is suggesting.

I think there is something strange about all of this, apparently they is security/army guys around that area, so where was they? why did Sisi bomb an area known as a terrorist base after the incident. why did he not do it before ? is it a government job (conspiracy theories) so the world gives them more aid, military equipment etc to fight so called terrorism ?

[newcastle]

We learn today from the B.B.C., less than 24 hours after this dreadful incident, that Sisi has bombed the s*** out of an area in Northern Sinai known as a terrorist base. If this is so, then why did he not use his special ground forces to take control of the area and capture such people, for intelligence purposes. I suppose, similar here to what the Dr is suggesting.

I think there is something strange about all of this, apparently they is security/army guys around that area, so where was they? why did Sisi bomb an area known as a terrorist base after the incident. why did he not do it before ? is it a government job (conspiracy theories) so the world gives them more aid, military equipment etc to fight so called terrorism ?

Improbable.

More like incompetence I'd say. The government's record in combating the insurgents in Sinai has been unimpressive to say the least.

If only they applied as much enthusiasm, and effort, as they do to rounding up, and incarcerating, bloggers who post uncomplimentary remarks, those who wave rainbow flags or those who suggest that drinking neat Nile water is unsafe.

[DJKeefy]

The ‘iron fist’ response to terror attacks in Egypt never works.

Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, cultivates a hard-man image. His response to Friday’s atrocity at al-Rawdah mosque in northern Sinai was wholly predictable. Hours after Islamic State-linked gunmen killed more than 300 Sufi worshippers, Sisi sent waves of warplanes to exact revenge. “The air force has … eliminated a number of outposts used by terrorist elements,” the military said.

If only it were that easy. If Sisi and his generals knew the location of such terrorist outposts, why had they not already been destroyed? It is probable the targets were chosen randomly and yet more innocent lives may now have been lost. This, in turn, may exacerbate Egypt’s long-running problem with Islamist insurgents.

Speaking to the nation after the mosque attack, Sisi – a former general who seized power in 2013 in a military-backed coup against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government – reverted to the only language he knows. “The police and military will avenge our martyrs and restore peace and security,” he said. “We will respond with brute force.”

But like an alcoholic who takes a drink and hopes that somehow the outcome will be different this time, Sisi’s addiction to violence is a kind of madness. Egyptian leaders before him, notably Hosni Mubarak, all tried to physically crush their opponents. They all failed. And Sisi will, too.

In the 1990s, before al-Qaida and Isis fully emerged, Islamist extremists tried to weaken Mubarak’s autocratic regime by targeting security forces, the Coptic Christian minority, and western tourists in Luxor. The official response, notably in underdeveloped Upper Egypt, was mass arrests, shoot-to-kill orders, torture and a scorched earth policy.

“Those actions destroyed the livelihoods of farmers and their families, who then became prey for recruitment by the very groups the government was trying to defeat,” says Mona Eltahawy, a Reuters correspondent in Cairo at the time.

More recently, the largely ungoverned spaces of northern Sinai province have become a new locus of militant activity. Sinai has been under a state of emergency, and closed to outside agencies and media, since 2014, when militants killed 30 Egyptian soldiers. In 2015, a Russian passenger jet carrying 224 tourists and crew from Sharm el-Sheikh was shot down.

Friday’s atrocity, like the airliner attack, has been blamed on Wilayat al-Sinai, an Islamist group with links to Isis that has previously hit Coptic churches in Cairo and Alexandria, although no claim of responsibility has yet been reported.

Sisi’s “iron fist” tactics have proved futile. The Isis connection appears to be strengthening as the terror group’s “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria is degraded. Isis is reportedly regrouping in neighbouring Libya. Northern Sinai may also become a destination of choice for displaced jihadis.

Unlike al-Qaida, which generally eschews civilian targets, Wilayat appears bent on maximum mayhem. By murdering Muslims, albeit Sufi Muslims who zealots view as apostates, the group has issued a challenge to Egyptian society as a whole.

Such lethal recklessness could eventually prove Wilayat and Isis’s undoing, by alienating ordinary Egyptians and people in similarly impacted Arab countries. But Sisi’s unthinking return violence could have the opposite effect, leading to further unchecked escalation.

Long experience shows that more killings, repression and dictatorial rule are not the answer for Egypt, any more than for other post-Arab Spring countries. Egypt under Sisi has become a black hole for human rights and democratic governance. Yet the US and Britain turn a blind eye, while a bloodthirsty Donald Trump tweets demands for revenge.

Until the state rejects systemic violence as a form of policy, the violence of non-state actors will persist and grow. That’s a hard lesson for a hard man like Sisi.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ever-works