Pope’s Egypt visit to go ahead despite bombings

Pope Francis
Updated 11 April 2017
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Pope’s Egypt visit to go ahead despite bombings

VATICAN CITY/ALEXANDRIA: Pope Francis will visit Egypt as planned this month despite the weekend bombings of two Coptic Christian churches that killed 44 people, a Vatican official said.

This comes as the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars on Monday strongly condemned the two church bombings claimed by Daesh, saying the attacks represented a “criminal act considered forbidden by Islamic consensus.”
“These bombings have violated several tenants of Islam; from treachery to sin and aggression,” the Council said in a statement. The statement added that eradicating terrorism and corruption requires cooperation, stressing that terrorism knows no country, nationality or religion.
Meanwhile, families of bombing victims gathered at the Monastery of Saint Mina under heavy security on Monday.
“There is no doubt the Holy Father will maintain his offer to go to Egypt” on April 28 and 29, Monsignor Angelo Becciu, the Holy See’s number three, said in an interview published in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Monday.
“What happened caused disorder and tremendous suffering, but it cannot stop the pope’s mission of peace,” he added.
Becciu, who will travel to Egypt with the pontiff, described the bombings as an “attack on dialogue, on peace.”
“Egypt has assured us that everything will go as well as possible, so we will go confidently,” he said.
The pope had also voiced his condolences Sunday for victims of the double bombing, which has led Egypt to declare a three-month state of emergency.
“May the Lord convert the heart of those who sow terror, violence and death and also the heart of those who make weapons and trade in them.”
Francis will become the second Roman Catholic pope to visit Egypt, following John Paul II’s historic trip there in February 2000.
Hundreds of mourners, many outraged by what they said was the state’s failure to keep them safe on one of their holiest days, carried wooden coffins to the beat of drums interrupted by the wails of those dressed in all black.
“Where should we go pray? They are attacking us in our churches. They don’t want us to pray but we will pray,” said Samira Adly, 53, whose neighbors were killed in the attack.
“Everyone is falling short...the government, the people... nothing is good.”
The blast in Egypt’s second largest city, which killed 17 including seven police officers, came hours after a bomb struck a Coptic church in Tanta, a nearby city in the Nile Delta, that took the lives of 28 and wounded nearly 80.
The twin attacks marked one of the bloodiest days in recent memory for Egypt’s Christian minority, the largest in the Middle East.
Coptic Pope Tawadros, who was leading the mass in Alexandria’s St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral when the bomb exploded, was not harmed, the Interior Ministry said.
The nationwide state of emergency declared by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and agreed by the Cabinet on Monday is expected to be approved by Parliament within seven days in order to remain in place.
“The armed forces and police will do what is necessary to confront the threats of terrorism and its financing,” the Cabinet said in a statement. Measures would be taken to “maintain security across the country, protect public and private property and the lives of citizens,” it said.
But anger at the state’s failure to secure the religious holiday appeared to be on the rise.
Youth gathered at the Alexandria funeral shouted chants rarely heard in a country where protesting has effectively been outlawed and rights activists say they face the worst crackdown in their history.
“Down with any president as long as Egyptian blood is cheap,” and “down with military rule!” they yelled.
Coming on Palm Sunday, when Christians mark the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem, the bombings appeared designed to spread fear among the Coptic minority.

“We shouldn’t stay quiet at all...it is a security failure..how did the bomb enter when there’s security outside the church? They’re saying now the metal detector wasn’t working,” Beshoy Asham, a cousin of a Tanta victim told Reuters.
The attacks also raised security fears ahead of a visit to Cairo by Roman Catholic Pope Francis planned for April 28-29 intended to promote interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

Softer target
In Tanta, where many families buried their dead on Sunday, members of the Coptic community expressed anger at the lack of security, saying that despite warnings of an attack, police had not stepped up efforts to protect them.
A senior police official told Reuters a bomb was discovered and disabled near the Tanta church about a week ago.
“That should have been an alarm or a warning that this place is targeted,” said 38-year-old Amira Maher. “Especially Palm Sunday, a day when many people gather, more than any other time in the year.”
At Tanta University hospital morgue, desperate families were trying to get inside to search for loved ones. Security forces held them back to stop overcrowding, enraging the crowd.
“Why are you preventing us from entering now? Where were you when all this happened?” shouted one women looking for a relative. Some appeared in total shock, their faces pale and unmoving. Others wept openly as women wailed in mourning.
Though Daesh has long waged a low-level war against soldiers and police in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula for years, its stepped up assault on Christians in the mainland could turn a provincial insurgency into wider sectarian conflict.
On Sunday, the group warned of more attacks and boasted it had killed 80 people in three church bombings since December.
“They want to use Islam to tear us apart. We are brothers and sisters and religion for God is Islam, but Christians are our brothers and sisters,” said Nematalla from Cairo. A Muslim pedestrian in Cairo wept over the church victims.
“These people are Egyptian....These people are our brothers and sisters and we love them,” said Mohamed Zeinhom.
Security analysts said it appeared that Daesh, under pressure in Iraq and Syria, was trying to widen its threat and had identified Christian communities as an easier target.
Daesh “are deeply sectarian, that’s nothing new, but they have decided to re-emphasize that aspect in Egypt over the past few months,” said H.A. Hellyer, senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council and the Royal United Services Institute.
“Christian targets are easier — churches are far more difficult to fortify than say an army barracks or a police station. It’s a disturbing development because it indicates we have the possibility of repeated and continued attacks against soft targets.”


US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources

Updated 3 sec ago
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US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources

“Five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan
Washington once regarded the group as the militant network’s most dangerous branch

DUBAI: Five Al-Qaeda members have been killed in a strike blamed on the United States in southern Yemen, two Yemeni security sources told AFP on Saturday.

“Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan province, which borders the seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government in Aden.

“The US strike on Friday evening north of Khabar Al-Maraqsha killed five,” said a second source, referring to a mountainous area known to be used by Al-Qaeda.

The second security source added that, though the names of those killed in the strike were not known, it was believed one of Al-Qaeda’s local leaders was among the dead.

Washington once regarded the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the militant network’s most dangerous branch.

Born in 2009 from the merger of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Houthi militants against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.

Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Houthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on militant-held areas of the country.

The Houthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.

The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.

Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian

Updated 1 min 18 sec ago
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Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian

BAGHDAD: Baghdad is working on a deal to free kidnapped Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed in Iraq for murdering a US civilian, security sources said Saturday.
The deal depends on US approval, the senior Iraqi security officials told AFP, asking to remain anonymous because the matter is considered sensitive.
Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023.
There was no claim of responsibility for her abduction, but Israel accused Iraq’s powerful Kataeb Hezbollah of holding Tsurkov.
The Iran-backed armed faction has implied it was not involved.
Iraq has been working to solve the issue which “depends on the Americans’ approval for the release of the Iranian accused of killing an American citizen,” a senior security source said.
The three Iraqi sources said that Washington has not yet agreed to this.
“The Americans have not yet agreed to one of the conditions, which is the release of the Iranian who is being held for killing an American citizen,” one official said.
Iraq is both a significant ally of Iran and a strategic partner of the United States, and has for years negotiated a delicate balancing act between the two foes.
The Iranian and another four Iraqis were sentenced to life in prison in Iraq for murdering American civilian Stephen Troell, who was shot dead in Baghdad in November 2022.
In December last year, the US Justice Department announced that a “complaint was unsealed... charging” Iranian Mohammad Reza Nouri, “an officer” in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with allegedly orchestrating the killing.
Tsurkov, who is likely to have entered Iraq on her Russian passport, traveled to the country as part of her doctoral studies.
Security and diplomatic sources have told AFP they do not rule out the possibility that she may have been taken to Iran.
In November 2023, Iraqi channel Al Rabiaa TV aired the first hostage video of Tsurkov since her abduction.
AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or to determine whether she spoke freely in it or under coercion.

British Airways cancels Israel flights until August

Updated 11 min 15 sec ago
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British Airways cancels Israel flights until August

  • UK carrier suspended route to Tel Aviv after Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport in May
  • Air France flights remain suspended but Delta, Aegean flights recommenced this week

LONDON: There will be no British Airways flights from the UK to Israel until at least August, the airline has said.

BA cited security concerns for the decision, having suspended flights to Tel Aviv in May following a Houthi missile attack that injured six people at Ben Gurion International Airport. The airline subsequently evacuated staff staying in the city to the Austrian capital Vienna.

A BA spokesman said in a statement: “We continually monitor operating conditions and have made the decision to suspend our flights to and from Tel Aviv, up to and including 31 July. We’ve apologised to our customers for the inconvenience.”

A message on the airline’s website for the route reads: “Sorry, we have no flights available. Please edit your search to find other routes.” The next scheduled flight from London to Tel Aviv is on Aug. 1.

Air France has halted flights in and out of Israel until at least May 26. Greek airline Aegean resumed flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, while US carrier Delta commenced daily flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Ben Gurion on Monday.  Both had suspended their routes following the Houthi attack.


African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes

Updated 48 min 8 sec ago
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African Union urges permanent ceasefire in Libya after clashes

  • Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah
  • The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government

ADIS ABABA: The African Union called for a permanent ceasefire in Libya on Saturday after deadly clashes in the capital earlier this month and demonstrations demanding the prime minister’s resignation.
The latest fighting in the conflict-torn North African country pitted an armed group aligned with the Tripoli-based government against factions it has sought to dismantle, resulting in at least eight dead, according to the United Nations.
Despite a lack of a formal ceasefire, the clashes mostly ended last week, with the Libya Defense Ministry saying this week that efforts toward a truce were “ongoing.”
On Saturday, the AU’s Peace and Security Council condemned the recent violence, calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”
In a statement on X, the council urged “inclusive, Libyan-led reconciliation,” adding that it “appeals for no external interference.”
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.
The country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade, which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
It came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.


South Lebanon votes in municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah

Updated 44 min 35 sec ago
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South Lebanon votes in municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah

  • Municipal elections are taking place in Lebanon as residents in the south cast their votes over the weekend
  • Hezbollah and Amal representatives are among those running for elections

BEIRUT: Residents of southern Lebanon voted Saturday in the country’s municipal elections that will test support for Hezbollah in the predominantly Shiite areas, months after the end of the destructive Israel-Hezbollah war.
Hezbollah is running in an alliance with the Amal group of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and both are expected to win mayoral races and the majority of seats in municipal councils. Both groups already won many municipalities uncontested.
South Lebanon is the fourth and last district to vote in the elections since May 4. Among those who voted Saturday were Hezbollah members wounded in the Sept. 17, 2024, explosions of thousands of pagers that blew up near-simultaneously in an operation carried out by Israel. More than a dozen were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded.
“The will of life is stronger than death and the will of construction is stronger than destruction,” President Joseph Aoun said during a tour of south Lebanon Saturday. He told reporters in his hometown of Aaichiyeh that he voted for the first time in 40 years.
Saturday’s vote came two days after Israel’s air force carried out intense airstrikes in different parts of south Lebanon.
Residents of villages and towns on the border with Israel, including the village of Kfar Kila that was almost completely destroyed during the war, cast their ballots at polling stations set up in the nearby city of Nabatiyeh. Residents of other border villages cast their ballots in the port city of Tyre.
“Southerners are proving again that they are with the choice of resistance,” Hezbollah legislator Ali Fayad, who represents border villages, said in Nabatiyeh.
Lebanon’s cash-strapped government has been scrambling to secure international funds for the war reconstruction, which the World Bank estimates at over $11 billion.
Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon that escalated into a full-blown war that left more than 4,000 dead in Lebanon and more than 80 soldiers and 47 civilians in Israel. A US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in late November.