How Bomb Blast & Firing In Egypt Mosque Killed 235, Injured 109

At least 184 people were killed on Friday when
Islamist militants set off a bomb and opened fire on
people attending prayers at a mosque in Egypt’s
restive northern Sinai, state media said.

Egypt has
declared three days of mourning after the attack, state
television has 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 Islamic
State (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.”

Arabiya news channel and some local sources said
some of the worshippers were sufis, who hardliners
such as IS regard as apostates because they revere
saints and shrines, which for Islamists is tantamount
to idolatry.

President Abdel Fattah 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.

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

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