Egyptian MP says church bombing was backed by foreign intelligence

A member of Egypt’s House of Representatives has said that the terrorist bombing of a Cairo church, which killed 24 Coptic Christians on Sunday, was not just the work of terrorist organisations. Given that the attack on the church came after a similar attack on a mosque on Friday, Mohamed Al-Ghould suggested that it must have been carried out with the support of foreign intelligence agencies.

The deputy chairman of the parliamentary human rights committee in Cairo called on the state to take action and make decisive decisions to combat terrorism. A state of emergency should be declared, he insisted, just as France did in the wake of the 2015 Paris attacks. Al-Ghould added that extraordinary decisions must be made to prosecute terrorists before military courts. Terrorism has no religion, he pointed out, and everyone must unite to eliminate it.

“As days pass, more martyrs fall,” he said. “They are the youth of this nation. We denounce, condemn and fill the world with yelling then everyone goes back to their daily lives. The victims’ families live through the pain of loss and the cruelty of the incident.”

The MP demanded the government to list the victims’ families and freeze the funds of Muslim Brotherhood members inside and outside Egypt in preparation for retribution at the criminal and financial levels, and to compensate the families of the victims. He praised the victims of the church bombing, describing them as martyrs who sacrificed their lives to protect the nation.