Trump Condemns "Horrible And Cowardly" Egypt Mosque Attack As Death Toll Hits 235

Update: After holding an emergency cabinet meeting, Egypt"s el-Sisi, speaking publicly about today"s attack for the first time, vowed that the perpetrators wouldn"t go unpunished. El-Sisi earlier declared a State of Emergency and three-day morning period following the attack.

However, many on twitter blamed el-Sisi"s policies for emboldening the militants.

 

Worst thing about the massive terror attack in #Sinai ?
It will give justification to the likes of #Sisi and #Trump and their so called War on Terror.#Egyptians will pay with more loss of freedom- if that is at all possible.

— Amr Khalifa (@Cairo67Unedited) November 24, 2017

 

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Update: President Donald Trump has offered his condolences to the families of the victims in today"s shooting at a Mosque in the Northern Sinai Peninsula: The world cannot tolerate terrorism, we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!

 

Horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers in Egypt. The world cannot tolerate terrorism, we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2017

 

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Early Friday, militants armed with guns and explosives stormed a mosque in Egypt’s troubled northern Sinai Peninsula on Friday, killing at least 235 people and wounding at least 120 others, according to Bloomberg, in what appears to be the deadliest mass killing in Egypt since the 2013 attack in Rabaa al-Adawiya, where soldiers loyal to present-day leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi murdered as many as 900 Islamists who had gathered in the square for a nonviolent sit-in.

The assault west of the town of El-Arish in Sinai targeted people gathered for Friday prayers, when mosques in Egypt often overflow with worshipers. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Yet Sinai province, a triangular piece of land bordering southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, has been a key battleground in the government’s battle against a local branch of Islamic State. Al-Arabiya and other local sources said some of the worshippers were Sufis. Islamic State regards them as apostates because they revere saints and shrines, which hardliners believe is tantamount to heresy.

El-Sisi has declared three days of mourning, according to Shorouk News. State TV reports five militants were involved in the attack.

While the bombings aren’t seen as threatening the stability of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s government, they’ve devastated the tourist industry, a vital pillar of the economy, according to Bloomberg. El-Sisi called a meeting with the security committee following the mass killing, according to the state-run television said.

Grisly images of the attack have emerged on social media showing bodies covered in bloody sheets.

 

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— Sinai News - ????? ???? (@sinai_news_1) November 24, 2017

 

According to Bloomberg, militants in four vehicles drove up to the mosque, set off an improvised explosive device outside the building and opened fire on people praying inside, according to a senior official in the north Sinai security directorate who asked not to be named. Locals took up weapons to help thwart the attackers, the official said. The suspects fled as security forces arrived.

While the majority of the militant violence has been confined to the northern part of the Sinai, it has on occasion spilled over to Cairo and other main cities. Meanwhile, attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority have killed dozens.

According to Russia Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered condolences to al-Sisi, describing Friday’s attack as cruel and cynical.

"The murder of civilians in the course of a religious service is striking with its cruelty and cynicism. We are once again convinced that the notion of human morality is absolutely alien to terrorists," Putin said in a telegram of condolences.

As the BBC points out, Northern Sinai has been living under a media blackout over the past few years. No media organisations, including state-sponsored media, have been allowed to travel there.

Friday’s mass killing comes after at least 54 police, including 20 officers and 34 conscripts, were killed during a raid on a militant hideout south-west of Cairo. The team was ambushed, and the ensuing firefight resulted in one of the largest death tolls for Egypt’s security forces in recent years. Authorities replaced the military’s chief of staff and almost a dozen top police officials following the incident. Of course, the major difference beteen Friday"s attack and the 2013 massacre at Rabaa al-Adawiya is that the latter was perpetrated by the Egyptian government, which has tried to wipe out all memory of the killing in the years since.

Media To Trump: Don't Cozy Up To Dictators (Unless They're The Right Dictators)

Authored by Adam Johnson via FAIR.org (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting),

After a series of friendly gestures by President Donald Trump toward Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi over the past few months, US media have recoiled with disgust at the open embrace of governments that ostensibly had heretofore been beyond the pale.

“Enabling Egypt’s President Sisi, an Enemy of Human Rights,” was the New York Times‘ editorial position (4/4/17)—followed by “Donald Trump Embraces Another Despot” (5/1/17). A week later, Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) lectured Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the Times op-ed page (5/8/17) on “Why We Must Support Human Rights.”

“How Trump Makes Dictators Stronger” was Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum’s lament (5/1/17).

“Trump keeps praising international strongmen, alarming human rights advocates,” reported an upset Philip Rucker (Washington Post, 5/2/17). Post contributor Tom Toles (5/2/17) added, “Trump invites ruthless dictators to the White House.” Trump had gone too far, was the media message, crossing a line with his enthusiastic outreach to brutal tyrants.

So the Trump administration’s announcement of a plan for not just a friendly visit to Saudi Arabia—scheduled for May 20–21—but also the sale of up to $300 billion in weapons to the oppressive regime, must have provoked the same outcry from these critics, right?

Actually, no. Thus far, the LA Times, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS haven’t reported on Trump’s massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia, much less had a pundit or editorial board condemn it.

Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen has killed at least 10,000 civilians, resulted in near-famine conditions for 7 million people and led to a deadly cholera epidemic—all made possible with US weapons and logistical support.

John McCain, whose New York Times op-ed was unironically shared by dozens of high-status pundits, aggressively backs Saudi Arabia’s brutal bombing of Yemen, and has called for increased military support to the absolute monarchy.

The New York Times hasn’t written an editorial about Saudi Arabia since October of last year (10/1/16), when, for the second time in the span of a week, the paper defended the regime against potential lawsuits over its role in the 9/11 attacks. When the Times does speak out on the topic of Saudi Arabia, it does so to run interference for its possible connection to international terrorism.

Nice words to the wrong dictators unleash a torrent of outrage from our pundit class. Nice words to the right dictators—along with billions in military hardware, which unlike nice words will be used to continue to slaughter residents of a neighboring country and suppress domestic dissent–result in uniform silence. Not a word from Anne Applebaum, no condemnation from Philip Rucker, no moral preening from Sen. John McCain, no sense that any line had been crossed from the New York Times editorial board. The US’s warm embrace and arming of the Saudis is factored in, it’s bipartisan, and thus not worthy of outrage.

While the New York Times’ news pages did note the $100 billion–$300 billion Saudi weapons sale, they did so in passing, in paragraph six of a broader article about Trump’s Middle East trip (5/15/17)—though to his credit, reporter Nick Cumming-Bruce did note:

criticism that the United States is supporting Saudi military operations that have struck hospitals, schools, markets and mosques and inflicted thousands of civilian casualties.

The Washington Post (5/17/17) reported on the arms deal in paragraph 12 of a story about Trump attempting to create an “Arab NATO.”

The Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia in the run-up to Trump’s visit echoed the “reformist” narrative advanced by Post columnist David Ignatius (FAIR.org, 4/28/17). “It seems promising,” Cairo bureau chief Sudarsan Raghavan (5/12/17) wrote of the Saudi King’s “calls” for “reform.”

Editorial page editor Jackson Diehl (5/14/17) even suggested in earnest that Trump could “lead on human rights,” finishing off his sheepish, somewhat self-aware headline with “Really.” In the piece, “human rights” is used as a placeholder for getting US citizens out of foreign prisons—a perfectly fine suggestion, but more about US rights than human ones. And, like the Post’s editorial board and the rest of the opinion section, Diehl’s musing on the topic of human rights entirely omitted Trump’s cozying up to Saudi Arabia.

This isn’t to say that major US media shouldn’t note when US leaders glad-hand despotic governments—they certainly should. But their almost uniform silence on Trump’s ramping up ties with one of the world’s worst human rights offenders, and the material, physical act of selling them munitions to use on Yemeni civilians, speaks to the arbitrary and self-serving nature of US media’s moral posture.

Over 37 Killed In Two Coptic Christian Church Bombings In Egypt; ISIS Claims Responsibility

At least 37 people were killed and more than 100 injured in two separate bombings at Christian Coptic churches packed with worshippers in northern Egypt one week before Coptic Easter, Reuters reports.

The first bombing, in Tanta, a Nile Delta city less than 100 kilometers outside Cairo, killed at least 26 and injured at least 78, Egypt"s Ministry of Health said. The second, carried out just a few hours later by a suicide bomber in Alexandria, hit the historic seat of the Coptic Pope, killing 11, including three police officers, and injuring 35, the ministry added. In a separate explosion, one person has been reported killed in a bombing of the Tanta police academy.

Egyptians gather in front of a bombed Coptic church in Tanta, Egypt, April 9

Shortly after the explosions, ISIS via its al-Amaq news agency, claimed responsibility for the bombings.

#ISIS, via its al-Amaq agency, claiming responsibility for Palm Sunday church bombings in #Egypt.

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) April 9, 2017

The attacks are the latest in a series of assaults on Egypt"s Christian minority, which makes up around 10% of the population and has been repeatedly targeted by Islamic extremists. They come just one week before Coptic Easter and the same month Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Egypt. The deadly bombing take place as the Islamic State branch in Egypt appears to be stepping up attacks and threats against Christians.  In February, Christian families and students fled Egypt"s North Sinai province after a spate of targeted killings.

Those attacks came after one of the deadliest on Egypt"s Christian minority, when a suicide bomber hit its largest Coptic cathedral, killing at least 25. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for that attack too. 

According to Reuters, CBC TV showed footage from inside the Tanta church, where a large number of people gathered around what appeared to be lifeless, bloody bodies covered with papers. Thousands gathered outside the church in Tanta shortly after the blast, some wearing black, crying, and describing a scene of carnage.

"There was blood all over the floor and body parts scattered," said a Christian woman who was inside the church. "There was a huge explosion in the hall. Fire and smoke filled the room and the injuries were extremely severe," another Christian woman, Vivian Fareeg, said.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Prime Minister Sherif Ismail are set to visit the Tanta site on Sunday and Sisi has ordered an emergency national defense council meeting, state news reported.

The spike in bombings marks a deadly shift in Islamic State"s tactics, "which has waged a low-level conflict for years in the Sinai peninsula against soldiers and police, to targeting Christian civilians and broadening its reach into Egypt"s mainland is a potential turning point in a country trying to prevent a provincial insurgency from spiraling into wider sectarian bloodshed."

Egypt"s Christian community has felt increasingly insecure since Islamic State spread through Iraq and Syria in 2014, ruthlessly targeting religious minorities. In 2015, 21 Egyptian Christians working in Libya were killed by Islamic State.

"Of course we feel targeted, there was a bomb here about a week ago but it was dismantled. There"s no security," said another Christian woman in Tanta referring to an attack earlier this month near a police training center that killed one policeman and injured 15..

Copts face regular attacks by Muslim neighbors, who burn their homes and churches in poor rural areas, usually in anger over an inter-faith romance or the construction of a church.

Pope Francis expressed his "deepest condolences" to all Egyptians and to the head of the Coptic Church during his Palm Sunday Mass before tens of thousands of people in St Peter"s Square. "I pray for the dead and the victims. May the Lord convert the hearts of people who sow terror, violence and death and even the hearts of those who produce and traffic in weapons," he said.

In light of recent geopolitical developments, a military response from the US to the two bombings is likely.

Is The U.S. Forcing Egypt Toward A Russian Alliance?

Submitted by James Durso

“The lion is back in his den!”

Hosni Mubarak, former President of Egypt, walked free last week after six years in detention on charges of murder and corruption. What does the U.S. have to show for it? Nothing.

In January 2011, Egyptian activists planned protests against corruption, lack of economic growth, and the heavy-handed police tactics of the recent years.  The protests were scheduled for 25 January in Cairo and across Egypt.  A broad swath of Egyptian activist groups participated, including the Islamists.  The protests quickly escalated and became increasingly violent to the extent that the police were replaced by the military.  At the end of two weeks, Mubarak had dissolved his government, appointed an interim leader, and announced he would not seek re-election in the September 2011 elections.

In early February 2011, on the same day that Vice President, and former intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak would resign as President, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces suspended the constitution and dissolved both houses of Parliament for six months until elections could be held.  In May 2011, Mubarak was charged with the murder of protesters and ordered to stand trial.

The elections of June 2012 handed power to the only organized opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood and its leader, Mohammed Morsi, who promptly tried to install an Islamist constitution and grant himself broader power than had Mubarak.  The secular opposition was upset that the Islamist opposition they helped usher into power would be so…Islamist.  More violent protests ensued. The whole sorry mess came to an end in July 2013, when the military seized power and Morsi’s hand-picked minister of defense, General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, became Egypt’s leader and was elected President in May 2014 with a Chicago-like 93 percent of the vote. 

Where was the U.S. in all this?  Inside the White House, Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates favored Mubarak’s gradual transition out of power, concerned that giving a longtime friend of the U.S. the bum’s rush would tell other friendly leaders in the region that the U.S. would buckle if it were them.  President Obama decided, however, the U.S. would be “on the right side of history” by forcing Mubarak from power after only two weeks of protests.  Thus, America forgot that its key audience in the Arab Middle East is the rulers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, not every activist with a Twitter feed. 

As a man once said, "How"s that working out for you?"  For America, not so well:

1. President El-Sisi is cordial with the U.S., but he is hedging his bets by getting closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin whom he has met with several times, in Russia and the Middle East.

2. Egypt has signed contracts with Russian companies for nuclear power reactors and advanced fighter aircraft. Egypt was stung when the U.S. delayed the delivery in 2014 of paid-for attack helicopters Egypt claimed were needed for counter-terror operations in the Sinai Peninsula - the first time the U.S. had used the Foreign Military Sales “nuclear option” of withholding spare parts or denying delivery of equipment. Egypt took the lesson and is diversifying its supplier base.

A key part of supplying military equipment is not just shipping the hardware, it is training the people.  Egypt has traditionally sent its military leaders, including then-Brigadier General El-Sisi to U.S. military schools, where they learned U.S. doctrine, the better able to cooperate with the U.S forces, were exposed to U.S. society and made contacts with future U.S. military leaders.  That opportunity to form relationships with future U.S. leaders may now be diluted.

3. Egypt is seeking Russian training for its forces. In one ironic twist, Russia will be training Egyptian pilots of the Russian Ka-52K Katran attack helicopter that will be based on Egypt’s new French-made Mistral-class amphibious assault ships that were once bound for Russia but not delivered after Russia seized Crimea.

4. Egypt is cooperating with Russia’s support of Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar by allowing the deployment of Russian Forces to the Egypt-Libyan border. Haftar, a renegade Gadaffi regime official who cooperated with U.S. intelligence and lived in the U.S. for two decades, returned to Libya to help oust Gadaffi and later gained command of the largest militia, ­­­­which opposes the UN-recognized, Tripoli-based unity government.

U.S.-Egyptian relations aren’t in dire danger, but Egypt’s relations with the U.S. and Russia may be returning to that of an earlier era, not exactly Nasser’s "positive neutrality," but more independent of the U.S.  And Egypt’s more independent stance will be helped by the recent discovery of an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas - worth about $100 billion - off its Mediterranean coast.

President El-Sisi was the first foreign leader to talk to President-elect Trump, who previously described El-Sisi as a “fantastic guy,” so goodwill is there.  America’s leaders will now have to dedicate time and attention to get Egypt on-side rather than assuming it will be a perennial “Yes” vote for U.S. policies in the region.