Militants Kill 235 at Sufi Mosque in Egypt’s Deadliest Modern Terror Attack
- 7 years ago
Militants Kill 235 at Sufi Mosque in Egypt’s Deadliest Modern Terror Attack
In an interview published in an Islamic State magazine last January, a commander in Sinai outlined the group’s hatred for Sufis
and their practices, including the veneration of tombs, the sacrificial slaughter of animals and what he termed “sorcery and soothsaying.”
The interview, in English, identifies Rawda, the district where Friday’s attack occurred,
as one of three areas where Sufis live in Sinai that the group intended to “eradicate.”
It featured a photograph of a black hooded figure brandishing a sword over the kneeling figure
of an elderly Sufi cleric, Sulayman Abu Hiraz, who was executed in Sinai in late 2016.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but in the past year a local affiliate of the Islamic State has killed a number of Sufis in the area
and singled out the district where the attack took place as a potential target.
CAIRO — Militants detonated a bomb inside a crowded mosque in the Sinai Peninsula on Friday
and then sprayed gunfire on panicked worshipers as they fled, killing at least 235 people and wounding at least 109 others.
At least 235 people were killed when militants detonated explosives and sprayed gunfire at a crowded Sufi mosque near Egypt’s Sinai coast.
The attack injected a new element into Egypt’s struggle with militants because most of the victims were Sufi Muslims, who practice a mystical form of Islam
that the Islamic State and other Sunni extremist groups deem heretical.
“The scene was horrific,” said Ibrahim Sheteewi, a resident of Bir al-Abed, the small north Sinai town where the attack took place.
In an interview published in an Islamic State magazine last January, a commander in Sinai outlined the group’s hatred for Sufis
and their practices, including the veneration of tombs, the sacrificial slaughter of animals and what he termed “sorcery and soothsaying.”
The interview, in English, identifies Rawda, the district where Friday’s attack occurred,
as one of three areas where Sufis live in Sinai that the group intended to “eradicate.”
It featured a photograph of a black hooded figure brandishing a sword over the kneeling figure
of an elderly Sufi cleric, Sulayman Abu Hiraz, who was executed in Sinai in late 2016.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but in the past year a local affiliate of the Islamic State has killed a number of Sufis in the area
and singled out the district where the attack took place as a potential target.
CAIRO — Militants detonated a bomb inside a crowded mosque in the Sinai Peninsula on Friday
and then sprayed gunfire on panicked worshipers as they fled, killing at least 235 people and wounding at least 109 others.
At least 235 people were killed when militants detonated explosives and sprayed gunfire at a crowded Sufi mosque near Egypt’s Sinai coast.
The attack injected a new element into Egypt’s struggle with militants because most of the victims were Sufi Muslims, who practice a mystical form of Islam
that the Islamic State and other Sunni extremist groups deem heretical.
“The scene was horrific,” said Ibrahim Sheteewi, a resident of Bir al-Abed, the small north Sinai town where the attack took place.