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Newsletter 1 December 2017
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Hundreds killed in attack on mosque in Egypt's Sinai
The death toll in a militant attack on a mosque in Egypt's north Sinai region on Friday, 24 November 2017, has risen to 235, Egyptian state television reported, quoting the public prosecutor. A bomb explosion ripped through the Rawda Mosque roughly 40 kilometres west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish before gunmen opened fire on the worshippers gathered for weekly Friday prayers, officials said. The Islamic State group's Egypt branch has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers and also civilians accused of working with the authorities, in attacks in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. They have also targeted followers of the mystical Sufi branch of Sunni Islam as well as Christians. The victims included civilians and conscripts praying at the mosque.
Many of those killed belonged to the interior ministry's secretive National Security Service.
The military later conducted air strikes on the attackers, killing their leader Emad al-Din Abdel Hamid, a most wanted jihadist who was a military officer before joining an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Libya's militant stronghold of Derna.
Source: The Nation
Many of those killed belonged to the interior ministry's secretive National Security Service.
The military later conducted air strikes on the attackers, killing their leader Emad al-Din Abdel Hamid, a most wanted jihadist who was a military officer before joining an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Libya's militant stronghold of Derna.
Source: The Nation