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Egypt: Sinai Monastery Attack Kills One, Injures Four | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Egypt: Sinai Monastery Attack Kills One, Injures Four, AFP


An attack on security forces near Egypt’s St Catherine’s Monastery in south Sinai has killed at least one person and injured four, state television said on Tuesday.

Security sources said it was carried out by gunmen on a police checkpoint several hundred meters from the church entrance. No group claimed responsibility.

The attack comes just over a week after two bombings on Egyptian churches during Palm Sunday services, claimed by terror group ISIS, killed 45 people. Pope Francis is to visit Egypt at the end of April.

St Catherine’s is one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world and a UNESCO world heritage site. Attacks are common in northern Sinai, where an insurgency by extremist militants has raged for years, but rare in south Sinai.

More so, Egyptian police on Tuesday arrested a man wanted for alleged involvement in twin church bombings this month claimed by the ISIS, an official said.

Two suicide bombers attacked two churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria on April 9, killing 45 people in the deadliest attack on Coptic Christians in recent memory.

The interior ministry had raised a reward for information leading to the suspects’ arrests to 500,000 pounds ($27,518).

The attacks, weeks before a planned visit by Catholic Pope Francis, prompted the government to declare a three-month state of emergency.