Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label jihadist attacks in Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jihadist attacks in Egypt. Show all posts

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.