At least 184 people killed in attack on Egypt mosque

World Friday 24/November/2017 17:30 PM
By: Times News Service
At least 184 people killed in attack on Egypt mosque

Cairo: At least 184 people were killed on Friday when militants set off a bomb and opened fire on people attending prayers at a mosque in Egypt's northern Sinai, state media said.
No group claimed responsibility for the assault but it was the deadliest yet in the region where for three years Egyptian security forces have battled an IS insurgency that has killed hundreds of police and soldiers.
State media showed images of bloodied victims and bodies covered in blankets inside the Al Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed, west of the city of El Arish. At least 184 people died and another 120 people were wounded, the state news agency MENA reported.
"They were shooting at people as they left the mosque," a local resident whose relatives were at the scene told Reuters. "They were shooting at the ambulances too."
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former armed forces commander who presents himself as a bulwark against 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.
But militants 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 IS.
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.