DEADLIEST EVER TERROR IN EGYPT

Jihadists’ guns, bombs leave hundreds dead

EL-ARISH, EGYPT• As worshippers ran from the bombs that exploded inside the mosque, the Islamic jihadists were waiting for them.

The gunmen opened fire from four off-road vehicles on the hundreds of worshippers who were fleeing in terror. They also blocked off escape routes from the area by blowing up cars and leaving the burning wrecks blocking the roads.

And when the ambulances arrived to cart away the dead and wounded, the snipers kept on firing.

At least 235 people were killed and more than a hundred injured in the deadliest ever attack by Islamic extremists in Egypt.

The attack targeted the alRawdah mosque frequented by Sufis, members of Islam’s mystical movement, in the northern Sinai. Islamic extremists, including the local affiliate of the Islamic State group, consider Sufis heretics because of their less literal interpretations of the faith.

The startling bloodshed was the latest sign of how more than three years of fighting in Sinai has been unable to crush an insurgency waged by the ISIL affiliate. Seeking to spread the violence, the militants the past year have carried out deadly bombings on churches in the capital, Cairo, and other cities, killing dozens of Christians. The affiliate also is believed to have been behind the 2016 downing of a Russian passenger jet that killed 226 people.

But this was the first major militant attack on a Muslim mosque, and it eclipsed any past attacks of its kind, even dating back to a previous Islamic militant insurgency in the 1990s.

Dozens of bloodied bodies wrapped up in sheets were laid across the mosque floor, according to images circulating on social media. Relatives queued up outside the hospital as ambulances raced back and forth. The state news agency MENA put the death toll at 235.

Resident Ashraf el-Hefny said many of the victims were workers at a nearby salt factory who had come for Friday services at the mosque.

“Local people brought the wounded to hospital on their own cars and trucks,” he said by telephone.

The village is home to around 2,500 people, all members of the Sawarka tribe. In conservative rural areas of Egypt it is usually only men who attend Friday prayers.

With an attack so large it is believed that a significant portion of all the men in the village were either killed or wounded.

Abdel Qader Mubarak, who is originally from the village, said his entire family had been killed. “I can’t talk, all my family are gone,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. But ISIL has targeted Sufis several times in the area in the past, notably beheading a leading Sufi religious figure, the blind sheik Suleiman Abu Heraz, last year and posting photos of the killing online.

Egypt’s president, AbdelFattah el- Sissi, declared a three-day mourning period and convened a high- level meeting of security officials.

In a statement afterward, el-Sissi said the attack “will not go unpunished” and that Egypt will persevere with its war on terrorism.

El- Sissi said that Egyptians would “derive hope and determination from such pain to triumph in the war against black terrorism.”

“We will remain steadfast and will fight back with an iron fist. This attack will only add to our persistence on overcoming the tragedy and we will win the battle against the forces of evil,” Sissi said. “The army and police will avenge our martyrs and return security and stability with force in the coming short period.”

The suffering of the victims was not in vain, he added, and will only “add to our insistence” to combat extremists. Addressing the nation later on television, he repeated his view that Egypt fighting a battle against mil- itancy on behalf of the rest of the world.

Cairo’s international airport boosted security following the attack, with more forces patrolling passenger halls, conducting searches and manning checkpoints at airport approaches.

State condolences poured in for Egypt, including messages from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, the U.S., Russia, France and Britain condemning the violence.

President Donald Trump denounced what he called a “horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenceless worshippers in Egypt.”

“The world cannot tolerate terrorism” he said on Twitter, “we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!”

ANALYSIS

Islamic militants stepped up their campaign of violence in northern Sinai after the military ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2013.

The result has been a long, grinding conflict centred on areas like el- Arish, where the latest attack happened, and nearby villages and desert mountains. The militants have been unable to control territory, but the military and security forces have also been unable to bring security.

Largely the attacks have focused on military and police, killing hundreds, although exact numbers are unclear as journalists and independent investigators are banned from the area. But the militants have also assassinated individuals the group considers spies for the government or religious heretics.

“This is a shift in the tactics of the terrorists,” said Hossam El-Rifai, a member of parliament for northern Sinai. “An attack on civilians at Friday prayers is not something we have been used to seeing.”

“This represents the scary prospect that the list of targets they are willing to pursue is growing,” said Timothy Kaldas, non- resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “It is hard to know, however, if they were targeted because they were Sufis or because they were perceived to be collaborating with the government.”

While the violence isn’t seen as threatening the stability of el- Sissi’s government, it has devastated the tourist industry, a vital pillar of an economy that’s struggling back to life after years of political upheaval.

Friday’s attack has cast doubt on plans to ease restrictions at the Gaza border, and raised broader questions about the effectiveness of elSissi’s security strategy.

“The attack will, over the medium- term, damage elSissi’s credibility as the figure that can protect Egypt, particularly if the security situation does not markedly improve,” Hani Sabra of political risk analyst Alef Advisory said in a note. “And it probably won’t.”

THIS REPRESENTS THE SCARY PROSPECT THAT THE LIST OF TARGETS THEY ARE WILLING TO PURSUE IS GROWING.