‘We will avenge our martyrs’
CAIRO Egyptian warplanes launched revenge raids on suspected jihadist positions in the Sinai peninsula yesterday after the country’s worst terrorist attack of recent years killed 235 people observing Friday prayers in a mosque.
Four jeeps containing as many as 40 men sped into the town of Bir al-Abed, 40 kilometres west of Arish, and surrounded the alRawdah mosque. Cars in surrounding streets were blown up to block exit routes as hundreds of worshippers fled from the mosque – only to be cut down by machinegun fire as they ran. The attackers also shot at cars being used to carry the injured away.
The startling bloodshed also wounded at least 109, according to the state news agency.
‘‘It was chaotic,’’ said Mohammed Sabry, a teacher and journalist. ‘‘Some tried to escape and were hunted down by the two people at the door. Those that managed to escape through the windows were met by bullets from the armed men outside.’’
President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi declared three days of mourning and summoned an emergency cabinet meeting.
Air force jets were deployed to hit targets in the hills south of Bir al-Abed, a stronghold of the local jihadist group Ansar Beit alMaqdis, which declared allegiance to Islamic State in 2014.
‘‘The armed forces and the police will avenge our martyrs and restore security and stability with the utmost force,’’ Sisi said in a live televised address. ‘‘What is happening is an attempt to stop us from our efforts in the fight against terrorism, to destroy our efforts to stop the terrible criminal plan that aims to destroy what is left of our region.’’
Yesterday’s assault was the first major militant attack on a Muslim congregation, and eclipsed past attacks, even those dating back to a previous Islamic militant insurgency in the 1990s.
The mosque is a centre of worship for Sufis, devotees of the more mystical aspects of Islam. Sufis have been accepted as part of Egypt’s largely Sunni Muslim tradition but are regarded as heretical by hardline Salafis and jihadists.
No-one claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but the Isis group affiliate has targeted Sufis in the past. Last year Isis beheaded an elderly Sufi cleric in Sinai, Sheikh Sulaiman Abu Haraz, aged 100, accusing him of witchcraft and apostasy.
Many of the victims yesterday were workers from a nearby salt factory attending noon prayers. The mosque, said to have a capacity of about 500 people, was full.
Witnesses said the attackers took up positions around the mosque. There was an initial explosion, followed by the stampede of worshippers into the line of fire.
‘‘People outside heard the noise, and they were trying to help those that managed to escape. They were also shot by the terrorists, and the cars that were used to carry the dead and injured were set on fire.’’ Sabry said.
Abdullah Abdel-Nasser, 14, who was attending prayers with his father, said the shooting began just as the imam was about to start his sermon, sending panicked worshippers rushing to hide behind concrete columns or whatever shelter they could find.
At one point, a militant shouted for children to leave. Abdel-Nasser said he rushed out, though he was wounded in the shoulder by shrapnel and a bullet.
‘‘I saw many people on the floor, many dead. I don’t think anyone survived,’’ he said at a hospital in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, where about 40 of the wounded were taken, including many children.
A nurse at the local hospital said: ‘‘Some have been shot more than once. People are traumatised. The men are silent and the women are crying. Nobody understands what exactly happened or why. Outside the hospital are lines of residents trying to donate blood and supplies.’’
The death toll, at 235, is higher even than that recorded in the 2015 terrorist bombing of a Russian plane carrying tourists back from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, in which all 224 passengers and crew were killed.
The Sinai insurgency has been rumbling for years but escalated significantly after Sisi came to power in an anti-Islamist coup in 2013.
The latest attack will raise TWITTER questions about the president’s continued use of force to deal with the region’s troubles, which started in a few impoverished villages west of the border with Gaza and Israel.
After coming to power, Sisi tried to show strength by sending in tanks and Apache helicopters to level villages thought to be the jihadists’ base.
Since then, more insurgencies have grown.
Among their victims have been hundreds of soldiers and policemen, but also Coptic Christians. In May, 29 Christian pilgrims were killed when the bus taking them to a monastery southwest of Cairo came under fire.
The attacks have largely focused on military and police, killing hundreds, although exact numbers are unclear, as journalists and independent investigators are banned from the area. The militants have also assassinated individuals the group considers spies for the government, or religious heretics.
The Times, AP