On Friday, Egypt suffered the deadliest terrorist attack in its modern history.
On Friday, a large crowd of Sufi Muslims was praying at a mosque in Bir al-Abed, Egypt, when a bomb ripped through their house of worship. As the panicked survivors fled the building, gunmen rained bullets down on them; when emergency workers arrived to treat the wounded, the militants reportedly opened fire on the ambulances.
Before the attack was over, at least 235 people were dead, and 109 others were wounded.
Terrorism has been prevalent in Egypt in recent years. But until Friday, the most vicious attacks had been directed at the nation’s Christian minority, and violence at mosques was rare.
As of this writing, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which officials are calling the deadliest in Egypt’s modern history. But an ISIS affiliate on the Sinai peninsula, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, has killed Sufis in the region in recent months. Like many other Sunni extremist groups, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis regards the Sufis’ mystical interpretation of Islam as heretical. According to the New York Times, the group had previously “singled out the district where the attack took place as a potential target.”
The mass-casualty attack undermines Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has justified his regime’s ruthless suppression of political dissent on grounds of national security. Following Friday’s attack, the Egyptian military launched several air strikes against fleeing militants in four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Hours later, Donald Trump argued that the attack on a Sufi mosque in Egypt proved that the United States urgently needs to build a wall on its border with Mexico. The president further suggested that, in light of this attack on a religious minority group, his administration would take further steps to restrict the ability of anyone from the Middle East to seek refuge in the United States.
