Sinai survivors detail deadly mosque attack
Methodical killers left 305 dead, 128 hurt in Egypt, officials say
ISMAILIA, Egypt — They arrived in five SUVs, took positions across from the mosque’s door and windows, and just as the imam was about to deliver his Friday sermon from atop the pulpit, they opened fire and tossed grenades at the estimated 500 worshippers inside.
When the violence stopped, 305 people, including 27 children, had been killed and 128 injured, officials said.
As the gunfire rang out and the blasts shook the mosque, worshippers screamed and cried out in pain. A stampede broke out in the rush toward a door leading to the washrooms. Others tried to force their way out of the windows.
Those who survived spoke of children screaming as they saw parents and older brothers mowed down by gunfire or shredded by the blasts.
So composed were the militants that they methodically checked their victims for any sign of life after the initial round of gunfire. Those still moving or breathing received a bullet to the head or the chest, witnesses said. When the ambulances arrived they shot at them, repelling them as they got back into their vehicles and fled.
Friday’s assault was Egypt’s deadliest attack by Islamic extremists in the country’s modern history, a grim milestone in a longrunning fight against an insurgency led by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group. Al-Rawdah Mosque was in a sleepy village by the same name in Egypt’s troubled northern Sinai, near the small town of Bir alAbd.
A statement by the country’s chief prosecutor, Nabil Sadeq, said the attackers, some masked, numbered between 25 and 30. Those with bare faces had heavy beards and long hair, it added. Clad in militarystyle camouflage pants and black T-shirts, one of them carried a black banner with the declaration of the Muslim faith — There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. The banner matched those carried by Islamic State, also called ISIS, which has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
The chief prosecutor’s statement was the most detailed account given by authorities and it generally agreed with what witnesses said Saturday in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, where some of the wounded are hospitalized.
“We knew that the mosque was under attack by (militants),” said witness Ebid Salem Mansour recalling the intense gunfire. Mansour, a 38-year-old worker in a nearby salt factory, said he had settled in Bir al-Abd three years ago to escape the bloodshed and fighting elsewhere in northern Sinai. He suffered two gunshot wounds to his legs Friday.
“Everyone lay down on the floor and kept their heads down. If you raised your head you get shot,” he said. “The shooting was random and hysterical at the beginning and then became more deliberate. Whoever they weren’t sure was dead or still breathing was shot dead.”
The militants were shouting, “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” as they fired at the worshippers and the children were screaming, Mansour added.
“I knew I was injured, but I was in a situation that was much scarier than being wounded. I was only seconds away from a certain death,” he said. Amid the shooting many worshippers recited their final prayers, he added.
Friday’s attack targeted a mosque frequented by Sufis, members of a mystic movement within Islam. Islamic militants, including the local ISIS affiliate, consider Sufis heretics because of their less literal interpretations of the faith.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi vowed that the attack “will not go unpunished” and that Egypt would persevere with its war on terrorism. Egyptian warplanes carried out strikes against suspected terrorist targets in the North Sinai region, the military said Saturday.
The military said its forces chased down and destroyed a number of vehicles used in the attack, killing their occupants. Warplanes also destroyed suspected “terrorist hideouts” containing weapons, ammunition, explosive materials and what were described as “administrative necessities,” it said.
Also Saturday, el-Sissi ordered that a mausoleum be built in memory of the victims of Friday’s attack and canceled an upcoming visit to the Gulf sultanate of Oman.
Friday’s assault was the first major militant attack on a Muslim congregation, and it eclipsed past attacks. The death of so many civilians in one day recalls the killing of 600 in August 2013, when Egyptian security forces broke up two sit-in protests in Cairo by supporters of Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist president ousted by the military the previous month.