184 DIE IN EGYPT MOSQUE ATTACK
109 wounded after gunmen opened fire on worshippers, set off bomb
CAIRO
ARMED attackers yesterday killed at least 235 worshippers in a bomb and gun assault on a packed mosque in Egypt’s restive North Sinai province, state media reported, the country’s deadliest attack in recent memory.
A bomb explosion ripped through the Rawda Mosque, 40km west of the North Sinai capital of Arish, before gunmen opened fire on worshippers gathered for Friday prayers, officials said.
Witnesses said the assailants had surrounded the mosque with all-terrain vehicles and then planted a bomb outside.
The gunmen then mowed down worshippers as they attempted to flee and used the congregants’ vehicles they had set alight to block routes to the mosque.
State television reported at least 235 people were killed and 109 wounded in the attack, which is unprecedented in a four-year insurgency by extremist groups.
Egypt’s presidency declared
three days of mourning, state television reported, as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met his security ministers.
Ahmed Abul Gheit, head of the Arab League based here, condemned the “terrifying crime which again shows that Islam is innocent of those who follow extremist
terrorist ideology”, his spokesman said in a statement.
The Islamic State’s Egypt branch has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, and also civilians accused of working with the authorities, in attacks in the north of the Sinai peninsula.
They have also targeted followers
of the Sufi branch of Sunni Islam, as well as Christians.
The victims included civilians and conscripts praying at the mosque.
A tribal leader and head of a Bedouin militia that fights IS said the mosque was known as a place of gathering for Sufis. AFP