Source: Doha Institute- Arab Centre For Research And Policy Studies
Author(s): Unknown
Introduction
A series of coordinated terrorist attacks struck Coptic Orthodox churches across Egypt on April 9, celebrated as Palm Sunday. The first bombing, at the Mar Jirjis (“St. George”) Church in the Nile Delta town of Tanta, accounted for the majority of victims. In Alexandria, Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church Tawadoros II survived a suicide bombing that targeted St. Mark’s Cathedral where the Patriarch was leading a special mass, though 50 were killed and 150 wounded. Egyptian security services also indicate that a car bomb was defused in the vicinity of St. Mark’s before it could be detonated. A blast would have significantly increased the impact of the attack. A group calling itself the ‘Egyptian Islamic State,’ an affiliate of ISIL, claimed through its media channel to have carried out the attacks, promising to deliver even further blows to Egypt’s already embattled Coptic Christian community. ‘Egyptian Islamic State’ had previously acknowledged an attack on the St. Mark’s Cathedral of Cairo in December 2016, which had killed 25 parishioners….
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