Blast at Cairo Church Kills Police Officer
Blast at Cairo Church Kills Police Officer
CAIRO—An explosion near a Cairo church killed a police officer Saturday night, the state news agency reported, the latest in a surge of attacks as Egypt’s Coptic Christian community prepares to celebrate Christmas.
In addition to the fatality, another officer was wounded in the blast that came as police inspected a suspicious item, according to Egypt’s official MENA news agency. Coptic Christians observe Eastern Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7.
Saturday’s blast was the second deadly explosion in greater Cairo in less than two weeks. The violence represents a continuing political challenge for President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a former armed-forces chief who vowed to restore security and protect the Christian minority after he came to power following a 2013 military coup.
The explosion also comes amid a wave of attacks on Copts, who are the largest Christian community in the Middle East and make up 15% of Egypt’s nearly 100 million people, according to the Coptic Church.
On Dec. 28, a bomb blast killed four people, including three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian guide, on a sightseeing bus near the Giza pyramids in a strike on the country’s most-important tourism site.
Following that attack, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said security forces killed 40 suspected militants in three separate incidents, adding those killed were suspected of planning attacks on state institutions and the tourism industry.
In November, seven people were killed after gunmen attacked a bus carrying Coptic pilgrims to a remote monastery in Egypt’s Minya province. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, which ended a lull in violence that lasted for about 10 months in 2018. Previously, a series of mob attacks in 2017 targeted Coptic churches in rural areas south of Cairo.
Mr. Sisi, a military strongman who overthrew his elected predecessor, has repeatedly vowed to impose stability in Egypt following years of political unrest and violence on the heels of the country’s 2011 revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt’s military is fighting a long-running insurgency in the northern Sinai Peninsula, and a local militant group joined Islamic State in 2014.
Under Mr. Sisi, the Egyptian government, citing security concerns, also has carried out a sweeping crackdown on political opponents in which tens of thousands of people have been arrested since 2013, according to human-rights groups.
Islamic State attacks, including those on churches in recent years, have killed dozens of Coptic Christians.
—Amira El-Fekki contributed to this article.
Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com
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