Attacks test Egypt’s president who orders state of emergency
CAIRO — Egypt imposed a three-month nationwide state of emergency Monday as President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi sought to ease public anger and take a tougher stand against Islamic extremists after suicide bombings at two Coptic Christian churches killed 45 people.
A day after the Palm Sunday bloodshed, the Interior Ministry said it killed seven Islamic State militants in an exchange of gunfire during a security operation in the southern city of Assiut. The ministry alleged they were plotting attacks against Christians. It posted photos of corpses lying next to weapons and said IS publications were found with them.
A state of emergency already in place in the Sinai Peninsula has failed to halt near daily attacks against police and security forces by the Islamic State group in the volatile area.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks and identified the two attackers with names suggesting they were Egyptians. The group, which carried out a bombing at a Cairo church in December that killed 30 people, threatened more such violence, saying the blood of Christians would flow “like rivers.”
Parliament has seven days to approve the state of emergency — an action seen as a foregone conclusion since the legislature is packed with el-Sissi supporters. The Cabinet declared it had gone into effect at 1 p.m.
In theory, it allows for arrests without warrants, the swift prosecution of suspects and the establishment of special courts. But authorities already have been waging a heavy crackdown on dissent for years, so it was unclear what would change.
A limited state of emergency and nightly curfew in the northern Sinai since 2014 has done little to stem violence there.