{"id":377264,"date":"2017-11-24T14:11:49","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T14:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=377264"},"modified":"2017-11-24T14:11:49","modified_gmt":"2017-11-24T14:11:49","slug":"egypt-mosque-attack-least-184-killed-sinai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=377264","title":{"rendered":"Egypt mosque attack: At least 184 killed in Sinai"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suspected militants have launched a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai province, killing at least 184 people, state media say.<\/p>\n

Witnesses say the al-Rawda mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed, near al-Arish, was targeted during Friday prayers.<\/p>\n

Local police said men in four off-road vehicles opened fire on worshippers,\u00a0AP reported.<\/p>\n

Egypt has been fighting an Islamist insurgency in the region, which has intensified since 2013.<\/p>\n

There have been regular attacks blamed on militants on the Sinai peninsula, but this is the deadliest assault of its kind.<\/p>\n

Pictures from the scene show rows of bloodied victims inside the mosque. At least 125 people were also wounded, reports say.<\/p>\n

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One report said the target appeared to be supporters of the security forces who were praying at the mosque.<\/p>\n

Locals are also quoted as saying that followers of Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, regularly gathered at the mosque.<\/p>\n

Islamist jihadist groups, including so-called Islamic State (IS), see Sufis as heretics.<\/p>\n

President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is to meet security officials to discuss the incident, Egypt’s private Extra News TV reported.<\/p>\n

It is not yet known who was behind Friday’s attack.<\/p>\n

Jihadist militants have been waging an insurgency in recent years, stepping up attacks after Egypt’s military overthrew Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of police, soldiers and civilians have been killed since then, mostly in attacks carried out by Sinai Province group, which is affiliated to IS.<\/p>\n

In September,\u00a0at least 18 policemen were killed in an attack on a convoy near al-Arish\u00a0by militants affiliated with the group.<\/p>\n

The jihadists have also killed dozens of people in attacks targeting Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority elsewhere in the country, and claimed they planted the bomb that brought down a Russian plane carrying tourists in Sinai in 2015, killing 224 people on board.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suspected militants have launched a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai province, killing at least 184 people, state media say. Witnesses say the al-Rawda mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed, near al-Arish, was targeted during Friday prayers. Local police said men in four off-road vehicles opened fire on worshippers,\u00a0AP […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":377272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[696,3],"class_list":["post-377264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-egypt","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/377272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=377264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=377264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}