Egypt: Islamic State Claims Responsibility For Massacre Of Copts

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Islamic State group militants carried out Friday’s killing of 29 Christians on a bus in central Egypt, its Amaq news agency claimed on Saturday.

The massacre took place in the central Egyptian province of Minya on Friday, as the Coptic Christians were travelling on a bus to a monastery.

It is the latest in a series of attacks by IS that have killed more than 100 Copts since December.

“A security detachment from the Islamic State carried out an attack yesterday in Minya,” the group’s self-styled Amaq news agency reported.

Reports say that militants in three pick-up trucks attacked the bus as it was heading for Saint Samuel monastery in Minya province, more than 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Cairo, before fleeing, according to the interior ministry.

Egypt’s said it conducted retaliatory air strikes on jihadi camps in the eastern Libyan city of Derna later on Friday.

The bus attack followed two suicide bombings of churches in April that killed 45 Copts. In December, a suicide bomber struck a church in Cairo, killing 29 people during a service.

IS claimed all the bombings and threatened more attacks on the Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90-million population.
Original article

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