Outside of Cairo’s St Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope, a dozen high-ranking police officers were stationed on all entrances, searching cars and scanning the area, as security measures were beefed up outside churches before Easter prayers on Sunday.
The usually festive occasion is tainted with fearful apprehension after twin bombings in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria killed 45 people this week on Palm Sunday, which marks the start of the Coptic Christian Holy Week.
The increased security measures on display outside churches across the country are meant to restore a sense of security for Egypt’s Copts amid a war on the embattled minority declared by the Islamist State group, which claimed Sunday’s bombings.
However, the enhanced security can do little against the effect of repeated attacks on Coptic churches in recent years.
“No security measure can stop a suicide bomber with jihadist beliefs from blowing up a church,” Coptic engineer Emad Thomas told reporters on Wednesday.
However, he said that Copts will still attend prayers on Sunday, as they have continued to go to church despite earlier attacks.
“Egypt’s Copts put their trust in God and not in security measures,” he said.
The Egyptian Ministry of the Interior announced the identity of the Alexandria church bomber, saying that he belongs to the same terrorist cell that carried out a bombing in December last year of a chapel adjacent to Egypt’s main cathedral.
The ministry identified the suspect as Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak Abdallah, a 30-year-old worker at a petroleum company, and published his picture.
It also published names and pictures of others identified as fugitive members of the same cell, offering a cash reward for leads on their whereabouts.
Outside St Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Cairo’s central downtown area, a military tank was stationed with five soldiers on top — one of the more overt manifestations of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s declaration of a three-month state of emergency.
In the southern city of Assiut, security barriers closed off an area within about 100m of large churches.
A local security source told reporters that agents would be dispersed ahead of Sunday’s prayers and a special unit would be formed at the security directorate to receive reports about suspicious individuals in the vicinity of churches.
A military source said that troops had started patrolling the city and would be stationed across town before Sunday.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to brief the media.
In the neighboring city of Minya, home to the highest Coptic Christian population in the nation, the Coptic Orthodox Diocese said that celebrations would be limited to the liturgical prayers “without any festive manifestations,” in mourning for those killed on Sunday.
Peter Naggar, a Coptic lawyer, said that the enhanced security around churches was an effort to appease Copts, many of whom blame the state for failing to protect them.
In the Tanta attack, the bomber entered the church and reached the front rows before blowing himself up.
“The government should have taken these measures before the Coptic celebrations season and not after disaster struck,” Naggar said.
After claiming the church bombing in December last year, which killed 25 worshipers, the Islamic State group vowed in a statement circulated online to continue its war on Egypt’s Copts.
The group continues to target security in the Sinai Peninsula almost daily, while carrying out sporadic operations in mainland Egypt.
According to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activity of militants, the Islamic State-affiliated Amaq news agency on Tuesday announced that the group has killed 172 soldiers in Sinai since the beginning of the year.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was