AFTER MASSACRE KILLING OF 305 PEOPLE, IMAM VOWS TO RETURN AND FINISH SERMON: EGYPT MOSQUE ATTACK…
AFTER MASSACRE KILLING OF 305 PEOPLE, IMAM VOWS TO RETURN AND FINISH SERMON: EGYPT MOSQUE ATTACK…
26-year-old Mohammed Abdel Fattah, a junior imam, hopes to
return home from hospital in time for this week’s Friday prayers A young iman who
survived the horrific attack on a mosque in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has vowed he will return to the site and finish his sermon once he
has recovered.
Mohammed Abdel Fattah, 26, was giving the
Friday sermon in the village of Bir al-Abed last week when up to 30 armed
gunmen carrying Isis flags entered the
building, detonating a suicide bomb. Survivors said that those who were not
killed in the blast and tried to run away were gunned down and the militants
set vehicles on fire to block access to the mosque for the security services. Mr Abdel Fattah is currently recovering in a
hospital in the Nile Delta town of Al-Husayniya and coming to terms with the
tragedy inflicted on his community. He hopes to be well enough to return home
this week and give this Friday’s sermon. He had preached at the al-Rawda mosque for two years. His interrupted sermon was about “Mohammed, the prophet
of humanity”, he told AFP. “I was only two minutes into my sermon when I heard
two explosions outside the mosque, and then I saw worshipers running in horror,” he said.
Then people entered
the mosque and began firing at everyone who was still standing.” The imam fell
from the minibar during the explosion and was then trampled by people fleeing
the attack. Eventually bodies began piling on top of him, leaving him unable to
move. “As soon as the shooting started I fell. I didn’t see or feel anything
except for the two or three bloodied bodies that fell on top of me,” he said. The
brutal attack is the worst terrorist incident in Egypt’s modern history. While
no claim of responsibility has yet been made, Egypt has been fighting several
extremist groups in the Sinai since 2014, including an Isis-affiliated
insurgency.
Extremism there has flourished amid the chaos that has engulfed the country since the 2011
revolution. Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has vowed the country would
respond to the attack with “brute force” – but public anger is growing at the
government’s inability to thwart terror attacks. While the majority of the
Sinai Province’s operations primarily target the police, army and other
security forces, the Isis affiliate has also carried out suicide bomb attacks
and executions of Sufi Muslims, whose interpretation of Islam they consider
heretical. Many worshipers at al-Rawda mosque are believed to be Sufi.
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