Muslim gunmen continue to target Christians in Egypt’s Sinai

In the latest in the series of attacks specifically targeting Christians in Egypt, 35-year old Bassem Attallah was shot and killed in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on January 14, 2018 by three gunmen.

Two weeks earlier, on New Year’s Eve, a gunman killed two Coptic Christian brothers; days after ISIS’ gunmen had attacked a Coptic church in Cairo killing nine people. Over all, since December 2016, ISIS insurgents have killed over 100 Egyptian Christians. It is feared that as ISIS gets dislodged from Iraq and Syria, their fleeing mujahedeen will relocate to the Egyptian Sinai, wrecking more havocs.  It is not clear whether Egyptian president Al-Sisi is truly having challenges with dealing with the situation, or whether he is only treating it with kids’ gloves for political reasons.

Elsewhere in the Russian town of Kizlyar, in the predominantly-Moslem region of Dagestan, on the border with Chechnya, a gunman burst in into an evening pre-Lent at the St George’s Church, killing four worshippers before he too was eliminated by the police. See details here.