Tag Archives: Egypt

Egypt arrests four in connection with church bombing, death toll rises

Egypt work on restoration of Cathedral

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian police have arrested four people in connection with the bombing that killed dozens of Christians at Cairo’s Coptic Christian cathedral last month, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

At least 25 people, mostly women and children, were initially killed when a bomb exploded in a chapel adjoining St Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic papacy. The Health Ministry said on Wednesday the death toll had climbed to 28.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said after the attack that the bomber was a man wearing a suicide vest and that security forces were seeking two more people believed to be involved.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement it had arrested one of the two along with three others who were part of the same cell and who planned to carry out more attack. One man is still on the run, it said, without saying when they were arrested.

Police also seized improvised explosive devices, shotguns, and ammunition with those it arrested, the ministry said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing and threatened more attacks against Christians but Egypt has sought to link the attack to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The ministry said in December that Mahmoud Shafik, the alleged bomber, was a supporter of the group. It said on Wednesday that one of the people it arrested was also a supporter of the Brotherhood but it did not mention if the others had any affiliation.

The Brotherhood has condemned the attack and accused Sisi’s administration of failing to protect the church. Sisi has dismissed the accusation.

Sisi took power in 2013, deposing Mohamed Mursi of the Brotherhood, and has since outlawed the group as part of a crackdown in which hundreds of its supporters have been killed and thousands jailed. An Islamist insurgency in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has gained pace since and pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2014.

Orthodox Copts, who comprise about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people, are the Middle East’s largest Christian community.

(Reporting by Mostafa Hashem and Mahmoud Mourad; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.N. council members meeting to decide on push to end settlements

A Jewish man covered in a prayer shawl, prays in the Jewish settler outpost of Amona in the West Bank

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Four U.N. Security Council members met on Friday to decide whether to vote on a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements after Egypt withdrew the measure under pressure from Israel and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

The 15-member council had been due to vote on Thursday afternoon and Western officials said the United States had intended to allow the draft resolution to be adopted, a major reversal of U.S. practice of protecting Israel from action.

New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal, who were co-sponsors of the draft resolution, told Egypt on Thursday night that if Cairo did not clarify its position, then they reserved the right to “proceed to put it to vote ASAP.”

Security Council member Egypt has since officially withdrawn the text, which it had worked on with the Palestinians, allowing those four countries to call for a vote, diplomats said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump had both called for the United States to veto the draft resolution.

Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said the Republican president-elect had spoken with both Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi about the proposed Security Council action.

“He put out a statement about the Egyptian motion that was going to happen at the U.N. It was revoked,” Spicer said on NBC’s “Today” program on Friday. “President al-Sisi called, Prime Minister Netanyahu called. He is getting results, whether it’s is domestically or abroad.”

The draft resolution would demand Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” and said the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.”

A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Russia, Britain or China to be adopted.

The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in a 1967 war. Most countries and the United Nations view Israeli West Bank settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Israel disputes that settlements are illegal and says their final status should be determined in any future talks on Palestinian statehood. The last round of U.S.-led peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed in 2014.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bill Trott)

Egypt delays U.N. vote on settlements after Trump, Israel urge U.S. veto

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) stands next to Donald Trump during their meeting in New York,

By Michelle Nichols and Jeffrey Heller

UNITED NATIONS/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Egypt postponed a U.N. Security Council vote on Thursday on a resolution it proposed demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, diplomats said, after Israel’s prime minister and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump urged Washington to veto it.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Egypt’s U.N. mission to postpone the vote, which would have forced U.S. President Barack Obama to decide whether to shield Israel with a veto or, by abstaining, to register criticism of the building on occupied land that the Palestinians want for a state, diplomats said.

In a sign that they feared Obama might abandon the United States’ long-standing diplomatic protection for Israel at the United Nations, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the White House to veto the draft resolution.

Sisi put off the vote after a request from Israel, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Egypt was the first Arab state to make peace with Israel.

Any council member can propose a draft resolution. Council member Egypt worked with the Palestinians to draft the text.

Netanyahu took to Twitter in the dead of night in Israel to make the appeal, in a sign of concern that Obama might take a parting shot at a policy he has long opposed and at a right-wing Israeli leader with whom he has had a rocky relationship.

Hours later, Trump, posting on Twitter and Facebook, backed fellow conservative Netanyahu on one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the pursuit, effectively stalled since 2014, of a two-state solution.

“The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed,” Trump said.

“As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations. This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.”

Egypt circulated the draft on Wednesday evening and the 15-member council had been due to vote at 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday, diplomats said. It was unclear, they said, how the United States, which has protected Israel from U.N. action, would vote.

The resolution would demand Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem”.

The draft text put forward by Egypt says the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”.

It also expresses grave concern that continuing settlement activities “are dangerously imperilling the viability of a two-state solution”.

The White House declined comment. Some diplomats hoped Obama would allow Security Council action by abstaining on the vote.

Israel’s security cabinet was due to hold a special session at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT) to discuss the issue. Israeli officials voiced concern that passage of the resolution would embolden the Palestinians to seek international sanctions against Israel.

In Beirut, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters: “The continuation of settlements is completely weakening the situation on the ground and creating a lot of tension. It is taking away the prospect of a two-state solution. So this could reaffirm our disagreement with this policy.”

OBAMA CRITICAL OF SETTLEMENTS

Obama’s administration has been highly critical of settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. U.S. officials said this month, however, the president was not expected to make major moves on Israeli-Palestinian peace before leaving office in January.

Netanyahu tweeted that the United States “should veto the anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday”.

Israel’s far-right and settler leaders have been buoyed by the election of Trump, the Republican presidential candidate. He has already signaled a possible change in U.S. policy by appointing one of his lawyers, a fundraiser for a major Israeli settlement, as Washington’s ambassador to Israel.

Netanyahu, for whom settlers are a key component of his electoral base, has said his government has been their greatest ally since the capture of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.

Some legislators in his right-wing Likud party have already suggested Israel declare sovereignty over the West Bank if the United States does not veto the resolution.

That prospect seemed unlikely, but Netanyahu could opt to step up building in settlements as a sign of defiance of Obama and support for settlers.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem its capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.

The United States says continued Israeli settlement building lacks legitimacy, but has stopped short of adopting the position of many countries that it is illegal under international law. Some 570,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Russia, Britain or China to be adopted.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington, John Irish travelling with French foreign minister, and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Tom Heneghan and James Dalgleish)

Cairo church bombing kills 25, raises fears among Christians

A nun cries at the scene of the Cairo Church bombing

By Ahmed Mohammed Hassan and Ali Abdelaty

CAIRO (Reuters) – A bombing at Cairo’s largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people and wounded 49, many of them women and children attending Sunday mass, in the deadliest attack on Egypt’s Christian minority in years.

The attack comes as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi fights battles on several fronts. His economic reforms have angered the poor, a bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has seen thousands jailed, whilst an insurgency rages in Northern Sinai, led by the Egyptian branch of Islamic State.

The militant group has also carried out deadly attacks in Cairo and has urged its supporters to launch attacks around the world in recent weeks as it goes on the defensive in its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but exiled Brotherhood officials and home-grown militant groups condemned the attack. Islamic State supporters celebrated on social media.

“God bless the person who did this blessed act,” wrote one supporter on Telegram.

The explosion took place in a chapel, which adjoins St Mark’s, Cairo’s main cathedral and the seat of Coptic Pope Tawadros II, where security is normally tight.

The United States said it “will continue to work with its partners to defeat such terrorist acts” and that it was committed to Egypt’s security, according to a White House statement on Sunday.

The UN Security Council urged “all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities” to hold those responsible accountable.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis condemned what he called the latest in a series of “brutal terrorist attacks” and said he was praying for the dead and wounded.

The chapel’s floor was covered in debris from shattered windows, its wooden pews blasted apart, its pillars blackened. Here and there lay abandoned shoes and sticky patches of blood.

“As soon as the priest called us to prepare for prayer, the explosion happened,” Emad Shoukry, who was inside when the blast took place, told Reuters.

“The explosion shook the place … the dust covered the hall and I was looking for the door, although I couldn’t see anything … I managed to leave in the middle of screams and there were a lot of people thrown on the ground.”

Security sources told Reuters at least six children were among the dead, with the blast detonating on the side of the church normally used by women.

They said the explosion was caused by a device containing at least 12 kg (26 pounds) of TNT.

Police and armored vehicles rushed to the area, as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the compound demanding revenge for the attack that took place on a Muslim holiday marking the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday and weeks before Christmas. Scuffles broke out with police.

A woman sitting near the cathedral in traditional long robes shouted, “kill them, kill the terrorists, what are you waiting for? … Why are you leaving them to bomb our homes?”

“EGYPTIAN BLOOD IS CHEAP”

Though Egypt’s Coptic Christians have traditionally been supporters of the government, angry crowds turned their ire against Sisi, saying his government had failed to protect them.

“As long as Egyptian blood is cheap, down, down with any president,” they chanted. Others chanted “the people demand the fall of the regime”, the rallying cry of the 2011 uprising that helped end Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.

Sisi’s office condemned what it described as a terrorist attack, declaring three days of mourning and promising justice. Al-Azhar, Egypt’s main Islamic center of learning, also denounced the attacks.

Orthodox Copts, who comprise about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people, are the Middle East’s biggest Christian community.

Copts face regular attack by Muslim neighbors, who burn their homes and churches in poor rural areas, usually in anger over an inter-faith romance or the construction of church.

The last major attack on a church took place as worshippers left a New Year’s service in Alexandria weeks before the start of the 2011 uprising. At least 21 people were killed.

Egypt’s Christian community has felt increasingly insecure since Islamic State spread through Iraq and Syria in 2014, ruthlessly targeting religious minorities. In 2015, 21 Egyptian Christians working in Libya were killed by Islamic State.

The attack came two days after six police were killed in two bomb attacks, one of them claimed by Hasm, a recently-emerged group the government says is linked to the Brotherhood, which has been banned under Sisi as a terrorist organization.

The Brotherhood says it is peaceful. Several exiled Brotherhood officials condemned the bombing, as did Hasm and Liwaa’ al-Thawra, another local militant group.

Coptic Pope Tawadros II cut short a visit to Greece after learning of the attack. In a speech aired on state television, he said “the whole situation needs us all to be disciplined as much as possible … strong unity is the most important thing.”

Church officials said earlier on Sunday they would not allow the bombing to create sectarian differences.

But Christians, convinced attacks on them are not seriously investigated, say this time they want justice.

“Where was the security? There were five or six security cars stationed outside so where were they when 12 kg of TNT was carried inside?” said Mena Samir, 25, standing at the church’s metal gate. “They keep telling us national unity, the crescent with the cross … This time we will not shut up.”

(Additional reporting by Arwa Gaballa, Amr Abdallah, Mohamed Abdel Ghany, Amina Ismail, Mostafa Hashem in Cairo, Philip Pullella in Rome, Michelle Nichols in New York and; Yara Bayoumy in Washington; writing by Amina Ismail and Lin Noueihed; editing by Ros Russell and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Rivals, regional powers grow uneasy with Palestinian leader

Palestinians take part in a rally in support of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah

By Ali Sawafta and Nidal al-Mughrabi

RAMALLAH/GAZA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab states are piling pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resolve divisions in his Fatah party and with the rival Hamas movement, amid growing concerns about whether Palestinian democracy is under threat.

Neighboring states, diplomats and major funders fear the festering divisions could lead to conflict, and say the lack of a clear transition process raises questions about what would happen if the 81-year-old Abbas, in power since 2005 despite his mandate expiring, were to die in office.

In a non-binding paper circulated last month, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates made recommendations for tackling splits that have deepened over the past year, while strengthening Palestinian leadership and trying to keep the stalled peace process with Israel alive.

“Efforts to unite Fatah and empower it are aimed at balancing the Palestinian internal arena and this falls under the responsibilities of the head of the movement, Abu Mazen,” the two-page paper said, referring to Abbas by his nickname.

Among the recommendations was the holding of “free and fair” elections for parliament and the presidency by July 2017, although there are no indications that will happen. They would be the first parliamentary elections since January 2006.

“The primary reasons are Abbas’s systematic mismanagement of such relationships, and a weakness of leadership that has opened greater opportunities for Arab and foreign interference in Palestinian internal affairs,” said Mouin Rabbani, a senior fellow with the Institute for Palestine Studies.

In a clear signal of its growing frustration, Saudi Arabia, which normally provides around $20 million a month to the Palestinian budget, has not made any contributions since April, according to the Palestinian finance ministry’s website.

Palestinian officials say Riyadh is withholding the funds because it first wants to see progress on unity within Fatah and with Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza.

With the United States, the European Union and individual EU member states having already cut their contributions, the Palestinian budget faces a severe shortfall this year, which the World Bank puts at around $600 million.

Asked about the pressure from Arab states, Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah declined to comment directly but said the focus of Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Abbas also chairs, has always been on Palestinian unity.

“Any attempt to intervene in the independence of Palestinian national decision-making will fail, just as it has failed throughout the past 40 years,” he said. Abbas himself has said nothing in public about the political process in months.

POLITICAL JOSTLING

Rabbani said it was increasingly clear the race to succeed Abbas had begun, with a number of rivals positioning themselves for the day he is gone.

Abbas faces several challenges. Opinion polls show Palestinians have lost confidence in his leadership, and if parliamentary elections were held tomorrow, it is possible Hamas would win in both Gaza and in the West Bank, where Fatah and Abbas have traditionally been stronger.

At the same time, factions within Fatah are growing more agitated, with rival groups emerging ahead of a party congress set to take place next month, the first since 2009.

Mohammed Dahlan, a former Fatah security chief who fell out with Abbas and now lives in self-imposed exile in the United Arab Emirates, is a staunch Abbas critic who retains influence within Fatah’s revolutionary council and central committee.

Some senior Fatah figures want Abbas to reconcile with Dahlan, but the president shows no such inclination. At the party congress, Abbas is expected to push for the election of a new central committee and revolutionary council – the equivalent of Fatah’s parliament – that would be free of Dahlan loyalists.

Dahlan, 55, said that if Abbas did try to push such changes through, it would be “illegitimate”.

It “will represent the most dangerous split in the history of Fatah and will be regarded as a palace coup,” he told Reuters in written comments, adding that there were legitimate reasons to worry about a collapse in the democratic process.

“It is time to implement the will of the people and implement the law by electing a new leadership and not a new leader. There is a historical and national need to hold parliament and presidential elections,” he said.

In an analysis last week, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace described Fatah, which has dominated Palestinian politics for more than 50 years, as “tearing itself apart”, with worrying implications for the future.

“It is likely that the split within Fatah will further widen if Dahlan is excluded from holding a leadership position,” it wrote. “Furthermore, the dispute between the Dahlan and Abbas factions could evolve into open warfare, which could mean instability or even violence – especially where Dahlan wields considerable power in the Gaza Strip, the northern West Bank and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.”

This week has already seen unrest in some West Bank refugee camps where Dahlan has a strong following.

Diplomats say Dahlan has good ties with Egypt as well as the Gulf states. Cairo sees him as a helpful interlocutor with Hamas in Gaza, where Dahlan is from, and as someone with the energy and strength to shake up Palestinian politics.

Others, though, see Dahlan as the power behind the throne. Officials who have met him think he may act as a kingmaker, rather than a future Palestinian president, throwing his support behind another senior Fatah figure as leader.

A number of names crop up in both Palestinian and Israeli assessments, including Nasser al-Qudwa, the nephew of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Jibril Rajoub, a former security chief who heads the Palestine Football Association, and Majid Faraj, the head of Palestinian intelligence.

Yet the most popular Palestinian politician, according to opinion polls, remains Marwan Barghouti, a leader of the first and second uprisings against Israel who was convicted of murder by an Israeli court in 2004 and is serving five life sentences.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Ethiopia blames foreigners for stoking violent unrest over land rights

People walk near a torched truck in the compound of a textile factory damaged by protests in the town of Sebeta, Oromia region, Ethiopia,

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia accused “elements” in Eritrea, Egypt and elsewhere on Monday of being behind a wave of violent protests over land grabs and human rights that have prompted the government to declare a state of emergency in the Horn of Africa nation.

The unrest has cast a shadow over Ethiopia, whose state-led industrial drive has created one of Africa’s fastest growing economies but whose government also faces criticism at home and abroad over its authoritarian approach to development.

Ethiopia declared a state of emergency on Sunday after more than a year of unrest in its Oromiya and Amhara regions, near the capital Addis Ababa, where protesters say the government has trampled on land and other political rights.

Rights groups say more than 500 people have died in the violence. The government says the death toll is inflated.

“There are countries which are directly involved in arming, financing and training these elements,” government spokesman Getachew Reda said, referring to the protesters, although he added that those responsible might not have state approval.

Getachew told a news conference the six-month nationwide state of emergency had been declared to better coordinate security forces against “elements” intent on targeting civilians, infrastructure and private investments.

Last week, protesters damaged around a dozen factories and equipment mostly belonging to foreign firms, which demonstrators accuse of purchasing leases on seized land.

The latest flare-up followed a stampede on Oct. 2 in which at least 55 people were killed after police fired teargas and shots into the air to disperse protesters during a crowded annual festival in the town of Bishoftu in Oromiya.

Protesters had chanted anti-government slogans and made arm gestures to symbolize repression, while some had waved flags of an outlawed rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Front.

Getachew named Eritrea, which has a long-running border dispute with Ethiopia, and Egypt, embroiled in a row with Addis Ababa over sharing Nile waters, as sources of backing for “armed gangs”, although he said it might not come from “state actors”.

“We have to be very careful not to necessarily blame one government or another. There are all kinds of elements in the Egyptian political establishment which may or may not necessarily be directly linked with the Egyptian government,” Getachew said.

Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman dismissed accusations of meddling in Ethiopia’s affairs. In a statement he said Egypt had “absolute respect for Ethiopia’s sovereignty” and “urged vigilance against any attempts to harm the brotherly relations”.

Eritrea routinely dismisses charges that it wants to destabilize its neighbor, and instead accuses Addis Ababa of stoking unrest on its own soil and backing Eritrean rebels.

HISTORIC FRUSTRATIONS

Many people from Oromiya, a region at the heart of Ethiopia’s industrialization drive, accuse the state of seizing their land and offering meager compensation before selling it on to companies, often foreign investors, at inflated prices.

They also say they struggle to find work, even when a new factory is sited on property they or their families once owned.

Frustrations about mistreatment by central government have long festered in Oromiya and Amhara, where new industries and foreign flower farms have sprung up.

Together the Oromos and Amharas make up more than half Ethiopia’s total population of 99 million people.

The ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been in power for a quarter of a century, is made up of four parties representing the main ethnic groups. But opponents say Tigrayans, a smaller ethnic group whose powerbase is in the north, are pulling the strings.

The government dismisses such charges.

Though praised for transforming an economy that Ethiopia’s former Marxist rulers drove toward a devastating famine in 1984, the government has also come under fire from domestic critics and rights groups for offering little political reform.

“(The government) seems to have concluded that economic development alone will satisfy the overwhelming majority of Ethiopians,” said David Shinn, an academic and former U.S. envoy to Addis Ababa. “Regular elections are permitted in this system, but they do not come close to meeting Western standards.”

Economic growth in 2015 hit about 10 percent, although a long drought has knocked it down into single digits this year.

In last year’s parliamentary election the opposition failed to win a single seat after holding just one in the previous assembly.

U.S. President Barack Obama told his Ethiopian hosts in Addis Ababa last year that greater political openness would “strengthen rather than inhibit” their development agenda.

The government said it ensured political freedoms but differed over the pace of any reforms demanded by Washington.

Protests first erupted in Oromiya and Amhara in 2014 over a development plan for the capital that would have expanded its boundaries, a move seen as threatening farmland.

The government shelved the boundary plan but the unrest persisted, turning into broader-based demonstrations over politics and human rights abuses.

(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed in Cairo; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Death Toll from capsized migrant boat off Egypt rises to 177

An Egyptian mother reacts beside the body of her son who was on a boat carrying migrants which capsized off Egypt's coast, in Al-Beheira, Egypt, September 22, 2016.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Eight more bodies from the wreck of a boat carrying hundreds of migrants were recovered from Mediterranean waters off Egypt on Tuesday, ambulance sources said, taking the death toll to 177.

The boat capsized off Burg Rashed, a coastal village in the Nile Delta, on Sept. 21. Rescue workers and fishermen said they had rescued at least 169 people, but confusion remained over how many might still be unaccounted for.

The spokesman for the Beheira regional governor said the shipwreck had been hoisted out of the depths and was likely to contain dozens more bodies.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday it was still tracking the incident and believed that about 300 people in all were aboard the boat.

Egyptian security sources initially said there had been almost 600 migrants aboard. But a survivor whose comments appeared in an online video said the migrants had been told that about 200 people would be making the journey but traffickers had then added another 50, causing the boat to founder.

Officials said the boat was carrying Egyptian, Sudanese, Eritrean and Somali migrants, and that they believed it was heading for Italy. Four members of the crew were arrested.

The IOM says that more than 3,200 migrants have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean this year, while an estimated 298,474 have reached European shores. More than 1 million Middle Eastern, African and Asian migrants entered Europe in 2015.

(Reporting by Mohamed Abdellah in Cairo and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by Asma Alsharif; editing by Mark Heinrich)

International experts in Egypt to inspect Metrojet wreckage

An Egyptian man puts flowers near debris at the crash site of a Russian airliner in al-Hasanah area at El Arish city, north Egypt, November 1, 2015.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Experts from Russia and Germany are in Egypt to inspect the wreckage of a Russian passenger plane that crashed in Sinai last year killing all 224 people on board, the Egyptian-led investigating committee said on Monday.

Irish, American, and French experts will join the inspection team which will seek to pinpoint the area where the plane began to break up, the committee said in a statement.

“Representatives from Russia and Germany have arrived today to inspect the wreckage of the doomed Russian Metrojet plane which crashed over the Sinai Peninsula last October,” the committee said.

Parts of the wreckage had been previously gathered and moved to Cairo International Airport. The experts will attempt to reconstruct the plane.

The Airbus A321, operated by Metrojet, had been returning Russian holiday makers from the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh to St Petersburg when it broke up over Sinai, killing all on board. Islamic State said it brought down the plane with a bomb smuggled inside a fizzy drink can.

Russia and Western governments quickly confirmed a bomb brought the plane down and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi later said the cause was terrorism. Britain and Russia suspended flights to Sharm al-Sheikh as a result, devastating Egyptian tourism, a lifeline of an already battered economy.

Russia is participating in the investigation as the airline’s country of origin, Germany as the manufacturer’s, Ireland because the plane was registered there, France because that is where it was designed, and the United States as the engine maker’s country of origin.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Lin Noueihed)

Egypt’s former Grand Mufti survives assassination attempt

Egypt's former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa speaks during the King Abdullah II World Interfaith Harmony Week

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, once one of the country’s top religious authorities, survived an assassination attempt on Friday, security sources told Reuters and state television later reported.

Two men on a motorcycle fired guns on Gomaa as he entered a mosque, the sources said. He was unharmed and one of his body guards received a minor injury to the foot. The gunmen immediately fled the scene.

“If Ali Gomaa dies there are millions who will take his place,” Gomaa told state television shortly after news of the attempt was made public. “I gave my sermon right after my survival.”

Like many of the top religious figures in the Egyptian state, Gomaa is an adherent of a mystical school of Islam known as Sufism whose practices have sometimes set them at odds with more puritanical Muslims, including hardline Islamist groups.

Gomaa is an outspoken critic of Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood which the military ousted from power in 2013 after mass protests against former President Mohamed Mursi.

He is also close to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the military’s ouster of Mursi, and campaigned for his election.

“I tell Sisi remember your God and pray to him and walk in his blessing. God will grant you victory. This proves you are on the right path,” Gomaa said.

The grand mufti is in charge of issuing religious edicts as well as issuing a non-binding opinion on all capital sentences.

No group claimed the attempt on Gomaa’s life.

Egypt is facing an Islamist insurgency led by Islamic State’s local branch in North Sinai where hundreds of soldiers and police were killed. There have been attacks in Cairo and other cities as well.

The country’s top prosecutor was assassinated by a car bomb in June last year.

(Reporting by Ahmed Mohamed Hassan and Mostafa Hashem; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Russian suspect in Istanbul attack: a shy student who found religion

Police patrolling at Istanbul airport

By Maria Tsvetkova

IKON-KHALK, Russia (Reuters) – When Rahim Bulgarov graduated from college in southern Russia with a diploma in tourism, his teacher expected him to go on to further study, or fulfill his dream of opening a car repair shop.

Instead, Bulgarov started going to the mosque with followers of a pious strain of Islam, and, according to a close relative and Egyptian security sources, went to Cairo last year to study Arabic.

Turkish state media have identified Bulgarov, 23, as one of the suspected suicide bombers who attacked Istanbul’s Ataturk airport on June 29, killing 45 people and wounding hundreds.

Several of the attackers were from Russia or ex-Soviet countries, making it the deadliest foreign attack by militants from that region since the Boston marathon bombing in 2013, carried out by two young ethnic Chechen brothers.

In the space of two years, Bulgarov changed from a shy young man who led a secular lifestyle to a suspected jihadist bomber, according to Reuters interviews with his teacher, an imam, a classmate and the close relative.

His case shows the challenges that Russian security agencies face identifying potential security threats out of the thousands of young people in Russia who are turning to ultra-conservative forms of Islam.

EGYPTIAN STAY

Three Egyptian security sources told Reuters Bulgarov spent 7 months and 12 days in Cairo, leaving in January this year, and that he signed up for Arabic classes at Al-Azhar University, an Islamic center of learning.

“He lived in a flat with another young Russian man in the Ain Shams area,” said one of the sources, referring to a suburb of Cairo.

Bulgarov was not on the radar of Egyptian security services until Russian authorities contacted them around a week ago seeking information on him and any other Russians he mixed with in Cairo, said the same source.

Bulgarov left Egypt on Jan. 13 for Turkey, according to the three Egyptian sources.

Some time after that, he returned to Russia and was interviewed by the Federal Security Service (FSB), which is responsible for counter-terrorism, and had to undergo a lie detector test, according to the relative, who did not want to be identified.

The relative said Bulgarov was then allowed to go home.

“He passed the test, he was fine,” said the relative.

Reuters could not confirm that the interview, a routine procedure in Russia that does not necessarily mean the authorities thought he was a security threat, took place. Local police and the FSB did not respond to requests for comment.

COMFORTABLE UPBRINGING

Bulgarov grew up in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, a Russian region on the northern slopes of the North Caucasus mountains where many people are Muslim.

But unlike other parts of the North Caucasus, such as nearby Chechnya and Ingushetia, there was no strong tradition of hardline Islamism or rebellion against Moscow’s rule.

Bulgarov’s family home is in the village of Ikon-Khalk, a settlement of the Nogai people, a Turkic ethnic group.

His upbringing was comfortable. His father is a tractor driver. His grandmother owns a deli store in the village which, among other items, sells food cooked by his mother.

Putting Bulgarov through college to get his tourism diploma would have cost his family nearly $3,000, according to Mardjan Dagujieva, the director of the college, a substantial sum by local standards.

At the college, Bulgarov was shy.

“When he dared to say a word in class, that was already a shock for us,” said Yevgeny Romanenko, a classmate.

He said Bulgarov at that time smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol – both habits which are forbidden according to most interpretations of Islam.

His teacher at the college, Gor Kurginyan, said Bulgarov was one of his best students with a dream to start a small business.

“He planned to launch a car repair shop along a road in his neighborhood,” said Kurginyan.

Bulgarov graduated from the college in 2011, and his teacher expected him to either pursue the workshop plan or keep studying, maybe at university in the nearby city of Pyatigorsk.

But when Kurginyan met up with some of his ex-students about two years ago, he heard the unexpected news that Bulgarov had devoted his life to Islam.

“I asked the guys: ‘And how is Rahim?'” said Kurginyan. “They told me he had … turned to Islam.”

RECRUITS TO MOSQUE

After Bulgarov graduated from college, he had been working on a farm and in construction in his Ikon-Khalk, according to his close relative.

But the village was changing. In 2013 or 2014, young local men started visiting the mosque at the end of his street, drawn to practicing Islam for the first time in their lives, and in particular to a very strict interpretations of the faith.

This mirrors a trend throughout the North Caucasus. According to a report this year by the International Crisis Group, poverty, corruption and police crackdowns in the region have left many young people feeling angry and persecuted.

Some of them have been drawn to radical forms of Islam which they feel offers a way to address injustices.

“More people started going to mosque,” said the imam at the mosque in Bulgarov’s village, Abdulla Kumykov. “It had been very few, about 10 people at Friday prayer. And now it’s 40-50, (taking up) about half of the prayer room.”

When a Reuters reporter visited last week, several men in their 20s and 30s hung around the mosque. They refused to speak with the female reporter, and insisted she did not cross into the mosque’s courtyard, saying women were not allowed in.

The imam, who could not explain why there had been an influx of new worshippers, spoke to the reporter outside the perimeter of the mosque.

He said Bulgarov had first come to the mosque around 18 months ago, and had prayed there regularly until he left for Egypt.

The close relative said Bulgarov left home for a second time in March this year, telling his family that he was traveling to find work in Labytnangi, a Russian mining settlement near the Arctic Circle.

The next time the relative knew of his whereabouts was when they learned he was a suspect in the Istanbul airport bombing.

(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed and Ahmed Mohammed Hassan in CAIRO and David Dolan in ISTANBUL; Editing by Christian Lowe and Anna Willard)