Church bombers linked to Brotherhood, says Egypt

Cairo : Egypt’s interior ministry Monday accused fugitive Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have fled to Qatar of training and financing the perpetrators of the bomb attack on a Cairo church that killed 25 people.

It said investigations revealed the group was led by a suspect who received financial and logistical support and instructions to carry out the attacks by Brotherhood leaders residing in Qatar.

The Muslim Brotherhood had denied any involvement with the explosion at the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church on Sunday. In a statement, the interior ministry said investigations showed 22-year-old Mahmoud Shafik Mohamed Mostafa, the suspected suicide bomber, had been arrested in 2014 while securing Muslim Brotherhood convoys while armed. He was released in May the same year.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had named Mostafa as the suicide bomber earlier on Monday. DNA testing of body parts found at the scene matched with his family, it said.

During investigations, authorities found two explosive belts ready to be detonated, as well as other materials used to make explosive devices, at a hideout used by Mostafa and his group.

Suspects named

The interior ministry also named the four other people whom Sisi said had been arrested.

Rami Mohamed Abdel Hameed Abdel Ghani is suspected to have provided refuge for the suicide bomber, preparing him, and hiding the explosives.

The three others are Mohamed Hamdi Abdel Hamid Abdel Ghani, Mohsen Mostafa el-Sayed Qassem, and Ola Hussein Mohamed Ali, a woman. It said the group was led by suspect Mohab Mostafa el-Sayed Qassem, also known as “The Doctor”, who travelled to Qatar in 2015 where he met with some Muslim Brotherhood leaders who had fled Egypt. Qassem was offered financial and logistical support to carry out attacks in Egypt and upon his return, he travelled to North Sinai province, where Islamist insurgents trained him.

When Qassem returned to his home in Cairo, the Brotherhood members residing in Qatar instructed him to start preparing and planning for attacks. The attacks were “aiming to foment a large-scale sectarian crisis” without linking the group with these attacks, the interior ministry said.