Morsi decries deaths
CAIRO • Egypt’s Islamist president on Monday condemned the brutal killing of four Shiites by a cheering Sunni Muslim mob while the police looked on, saying the culprits must be swiftly brought to justice.
But opponents of President Mohamed Morsi said he was in part to blame for implicitly supporting his hard-line allies as they stir up incitement against Shiites in response to Syria’s civil war. A week ago, Mr. Morsi appeared on stage with hard-line clerics who denounced Shiites as “filthy.” Critics warn that militant Islamists are acting with dangerous impunity.
Sunday’s attack in the village of Zawiyet Abu Musalam, near the Pyramids of Giza, came as about 30 Shiites were having a meal to mark a religious occasion. Hundreds of young men descended on them in the house.
In online videos of the killings, young men armed with metal and wooden clubs, swords and machetes, beat the Shiites on the head and back, trapping them in the narrow entrance of the house.
The Shiites beg for mercy as blood streams down their heads and soaks their robes. A crowd pressing around them triumphantly chants “Allahu akbar” or “God is great.” Others screamed “You sons of dogs!” One video shows a young man dragging the motionless and bloodied body of one victim by a rope.
The videos appeared genuine and conformed with Associated Press reporting on the attack.
Among those killed was a prominent Shiite cleric, Hassan Shehata. Afterward, the attackers congratulated each other, one witness, local activist Hazem Barakat, said in written and video account of the events he posted online. He said that in the weeks preceding the attack, ultraconservative Salafi clerics in the area had been speaking out against Shiites.
A two-paragraph statement by Mr. Morsi’s office condemned the killings. It said the culprits must be found quickly and brought to justice, vowing that authorities will not be “lenient” with anyone who interferes with the nation’s security and stability.
Police identified 13 suspects but have not yet made any arrests, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Mr. Morsi hails, also denounced the killings.
But in a seeming show of conservative Sunnis’ distaste for the sect, he would not refer to the victims as Shiites. In a posting on his Facebook page, Ahmed Aref identified them as “the four dead who have beliefs of their own that are alien to our society.”
The violence was startling, even in a country where violence has risen dramatically in the two years after the ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Mobs in rural areas have in recent months lynched suspected criminals amid a rise in gangs robbing motorists and banks. Police still often don’t act to stop crimes, and the public has grown increasingly frustrated over increasing economic hardships and shortages.