Attack on mosque in Egypt’s Sinai kills at least 235

Cairo, Egypt | AFP | Attackers killed at least 235 worshippers Friday in a bomb and gun assault on a packed mosque in Egypt’s restive North Sinai province, in the country’s deadliest attack in recent memory.

A bomb explosion ripped through the Rawda mosque frequented by Sufis roughly 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish before gunmen opened fire on those gathered for weekly Friday prayers, officials said.

Witnesses said the assailants surrounded the mosque with all-terrain vehicles and then planted a bomb outside.

The gunmen then mowed down the panicked worshippers as they tried to flee and used the congregants’ vehicles they had set alight to block routes to the mosque.

The state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that 235 people were killed and 109 wounded in the attack, the scale of which is unprecedented in a four-year insurgency by Islamist extremist groups.

US President Donald Trump condemned on Twitter the “horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenceless worshippers”.

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

A furious Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared three days of mourning and pledged to “respond with brutal force”.

“The army and police will avenge our martyrs and return security and stability with force in the coming short period,” he added in a televised speech.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences to Sisi, calling the attack “striking for its cruelty and cynicism”, while condemnations poured in from Israel, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other countries.

UK foreign minister Boris Johnson decried the “barbaric attack”, while his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian labelled it “despicable”.

Deeply saddened by the abhorrent attack on a mosque in North Sinai, #Egypt. My sincere condolences to all those affected by such a barbaric act.

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 24, 2017

Pope Francis and Egypt’s highest Muslim religious authority joined in the condemnation.

“His Holiness joins all people of good will in imploring that hearts hardened by hatred will learn to renounce the way of violence,” the pope’s office said.

The grand imam of Cairo’s Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, condemned “in the strongest terms this barbaric terrorist attack”.