Egypt says it killed 19 in shootout with perpetrators of attack on Christians
Gunmen had killed 7 pilgrims Friday in Islamic State assault on the road to remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt said Sunday that security forces have killed 19 jihadists in a shootout, including the gunmen suspected of killing seven Christians in an attack on pilgrims traveling to a remote desert monastery.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, said the militants were tracked to a hideout in the desert west of the central province of Minya, the site of Friday’s attack, which also left 19 people wounded.
It said the alleged jihadists opened fire when they realized they were being besieged by security forces. It did not say when the shootout took place.
The ministry published photographs purporting to show the bodies of the slain fighters, as well as rifles, shotguns and pistols. Other images showed the inside of a tent and the black banner of the Islamic State group — which claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack — unfurled on the ground.
An IS affiliate centered in the Sinai Peninsula has repeatedly targeted Christians, in part over their support for President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
Sissi led the 2013 overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president and has since waged a sweeping crackdown on dissent, jailing thousands of Islamists and other activists.
Friday’s attack was the second in as many years to target pilgrims on their way to the monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, after a May 2017 assault left 29 dead.
Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 100 million people and have long complained of discrimination. They have accused police of negligence after this and other attacks, and say authorities often go easy on Muslim assailants after outbreaks of sectarian violence, which are mainly confined to poorer and more rural areas.
