Bombing Of Coptic Church Raises Fears In Egypt

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

And I'm Robert Siegel.

Violence by militant Islamist groups against Christians in Egypt is not new. But there are unusual expressions of alarm over the most recent attack, a bomb killed more than two dozen people and injured nearly a hundred after a New Year's service in a Coptic Church in Alexandria.

The Coptic Church is the Egyptian Christian church. Copts account for about 10 percent of Egypt's population. The vast majority of Egyptians are Muslim.

Among the new worries are that it was possibly the work of a suicide bomber and that it may have been organized by al-Qaida.

Borzou Daragahi is a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. He's based in Beirut and joins us now.

And first, Borzou, what's the latest on the investigation?

Mr. BORZOU DARAGAHI (Correspondent, Los Angeles Times): Well, Egyptian authorities pretty much admit that they - if you read between the lines - that they're kind of at a loss. They arrested 17 people yesterday and then let most of them go. According to information that we have, many of those arrested were people who had cars in that particular area or happen to be passing by.

They fear that the best evidence for who is behind this bomb may have been incinerated in the bomb itself, if it was, in fact, a suicide bomber. And that's another point that underscores the kind of lack of clues that they seem to have. They're still not even conclusive as to whether it was a suicide bomber or a car bomb at this point. It was apparently a very big explosion.

SIEGEL: And is there any evidence, beyond the suspicion of it having been possibly a suicide bomber, that links this to al-Qaida or to an inspiration from al-Qaida?

Mr. DARAGAHI: There's nothing more than circumstantial evidence. This is the kind of attack apparently designed to inflict maximum casualties that al-Qaida is known for. And also, just recently in Iraq, the al-Qaida branch in Iraq declared basically war on Egyptian Christian sites because of this - it's the strange story about these two wives of Coptic Christian priests who purportedly converted to Islam and then were purportedly locked up by the Coptic Church as punishment for converting.

No one is even sure if this story is true, but it seems to have gained currency in the Internet, and it has become an excuse to launch attacks on Christians in the Middle East.

SIEGEL: Yes. Not just in Egypt now, but before that, in Iraq. Are Christians a new front for Islamist militants in the region?

Mr. DARAGAHI: You know, increasingly, it does seem that way. And, you know, you had the Christmas Eve bombings in Nigeria, you've had these attacks, constant attacks, really, stepping up recently on Iraqi Christians in Mosul, in Baghdad. And there does seem to be this concerted campaign to target this very vulnerable, dwindling community that does not have a lot of political power, does not have a lot of ways of defending itself. And it's, you know, a rather treasured community for many in the Middle East. And it's being - it's considered a tragedy that this community is being whittled down.

SIEGEL: I saw that a very senior Muslim cleric in Egypt expressed condolences for this to the leader of the Coptic community. And there have been other condemnations of the attack from Islamist groups in the Middle East. Do those condolences count for much with the Christian communities?

Mr. DARAGAHI: I think that for some in the Christian community, they do count for something. But on the other hand, what many Christians in the Middle East complain about is that, you know, even in the officially sanctioned Muslim discourse in the mainstream of the religion and the culture in the Middle East, they're often, you know, depicted as dupes of the West, that they're privileged, that they're wealthier and so on, creating the soup in which this type of extremism can take shape.

SIEGEL: Borzou, thanks for talking to us once again.

Mr. DARAGAHI: It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

SIEGEL: That's Borzou Daragahi, who is a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. He spoke to us from Beirut in Lebanon.

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