Egypt bomb kills 21 at Alexandria Coptic church

The moment of the attack - Footage courtesy the al-Qiddissin Church

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President Hosni Mubarak has urged Egypt's Muslims and Christians to stand united against terrorism after a bombing outside a church in Alexandria.


In a rare televised address, Mr Mubarak said it bore the hallmark of "foreign hands" seeking to destabilise Egypt.

Several hundred Christians later clashed nearby with Muslims and police.

'In this together'


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End Quote Hosni Mubarak Egyptian President







Sectarian tensions have been increasing recently across Egypt, with violent incidents every couple of weeks.

The Naga Hamady shooting that killed six Christians almost a year ago sounded alarm bells.

Divisions have widened in recent decades between Egypt's Sunni Muslim majority and the Coptic Christian minority, who have become more religious.

Schools, political stagnation and the media are all blamed for increasing polarisation.

The security services are widely criticised. Often police delay their response to small sectarian disputes, meaning they escalate.

When crimes take place, there are indiscriminate arrests of equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, followed by reconciliation meetings. In 99% of cases perpetrators go unpunished.

Officials often deny sectarian problems exist and simply respond to clashes with calls for national unity.

Even if foreign links are proven, the scale of this latest attack will make it much harder to ignore.


"This act of terrorism shook the country's conscience, shocked our feelings and hurt the hearts of Muslim and Coptic Egyptians," he said.


"This sinful act is part of a series of efforts to drive a wedge between Copts and Muslims, but Allah has aborted the plotters' plans and turned it against them. We are all in this together and will face up to terrorism and defeat it."

Mr Mubarak said the Egyptian people had been subject to "terrorism that knows neither homeland nor a religion".

"It was a terrorist operation which carries, within itself, the hallmark of foreign hands which want to turn Egypt into another scene of terrorism like elsewhere in the region and the wider world," he added.

Egypt's top Muslim leaders also expressed their condolences and unity.

The Islamist opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, said no religion in the world could condone such a crime.

Sectarian tension

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Why did they have so little security at such a sensitive time when there's so many threats coming from al-Qaeda?”

End Quote Archbishop Arweis

Despite the statements, hundreds of angry Copts clashed with police and local Muslims after the bombing, reportedly throwing stones and targeting the mosque near the church. Some cars were also set ablaze.

Dozens of police rushed to the scene and used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

The protests continued throughout Sunday, with Copts marching through the area shouting, "With our soul and our blood we will redeem the Holy Cross" and "O Mubarak, the heart of the Copts is on fire".

The top Coptic cleric in Alexandria, Archbishop Arweis, said the security services wanted to blame a suicide bomber instead of a car bomb so they could write it off as something carried out by a lone attacker.

He also denounced the "lack of protection" in front of the church.

"There were only three soldiers and an officer in front of the church. Why did they have so little security at such a sensitive time when there's so many threats coming from al-Qaeda?" he told the Associated Press.

Police confront protesters outside the church in Alexandria targeted by a bomb (1 January 2011) Police were deployed to disperse a crowd of Copts angered by the attack

The government said it had stepped up security measures outside churches after the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, threatened the Copts of Egypt at the end of October.

Christians in the Coptic Orthodox Church make up about 10% of Egypt's population, most of whom are Muslims.

In recent months, Copts have complained of discrimination, while some Muslims accuse churches of holding converts to Islam against their will, our correspondent reports.

The BBC's Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says the Alexandria bombing is likely to intensify the growing feeling among Christians in the Middle East that they are a community under attack.

The blast is deeply embarrassing for the Egyptian police who, despite having draconian powers, have proved repeatedly incapable of anticipating and thwarting such violence, he says.

Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city with a population of about 4 million, has seen sectarian violence in the past.

In 2006, there were days of clashes between Copts and Muslims after a Copt was stabbed to death during a knife attack on three churches.

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