Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Friday, November 24, 2017

Main jihadist attacks in Egypt--analysis


by Nasra Ismail and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts, Cairo


    © AFP | Egyptians gather outside the Rawda mosque, roughly 40 kilometres west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish, following a gun and bombing attack, on November 24, 2017

    CAIRO  - 
    The attack on a mosque in Egypt's restive North Sinai Friday was the country's deadliest in recent memory, with the state prosecutor's office saying at least 235 people were killed.
    Here is a list of some of the biggest attacks in the country blamed on Islamists since the late 1990s.
    - Tourists targeted -
    - November 1997: 62 people, including 58 tourists, are killed in an attack on Hatshepsut temple in Luxor claimed by Islamist militant group Jamaa Islamiyya.
    - October 2004: Israeli tourists are among 34 people killed in three bombings in the Sinai resorts of Taba and Nuweiba. More than 100 people wounded.
    - July 2005: About 70 people are killed in three bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Four groups claim the attacks, including one linked to Al-Qaeda.
    - February 2014: Three South Korean tourists and their Egyptian driver are killed in a bombing in the Sinai.
    - October 2015: A Russian airliner carrying holidaymakers from the south Sinai resort of Sharm El-Sheikh crashes, killing all 224 people on board. The Egyptian branch of the Islamic State group said it downed the aircraft with a bomb.
    - Attacks on security forces -
    Jihadists have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers in Egypt since the army's ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and an ensuing brutal crackdown on his supporters.
    - August 2013: Militants kill at least 25 policemen in the Sinai, the base of many armed Islamist groups.
    - October 2014: A suicide car bombing by a suspected jihadist kills 30 soldiers.
    - January 2015: 30 people, mostly soldiers, die in coordinated attacks in the North Sinai claimed by Egypt's wing of the Islamic State group.
    - Attacks on religious minorities -
    Since December 2016, a local affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed attacks that have killed more than 100 Coptic Christians. The minority makes up about 10 percent of Egypt's 90 million people.
    - In December 2016, a suicide bomber strikes at a church in Cairo, killing 29 Copts.
    - In April 2017, two suicide bombings of churches kill 45 members of the minority.
    - In May 2017, IS claims responsibility for shooting dead at least 29 Copts as they travel to a monastery.

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