A statement from the Egyptian Attorney General's Office this morning indicates 305 dead, including 27 children, and 128 injured as the toll from the terrorist massacre carried out yesterday at the Al Rawdah mosque in Northern Sinai.
"The (Egyptian) Law Enforcement Forces continue with the Air Force to sift through terrorist hideouts in search of the takfiris", the Islamic terrorists who carried out yesterday's attack on the mosque in northern Sinai: according to a statement from the Armed Forces published this morning on Facebook. The note, without providing figures, confirms that "the air forces have hunted down the terrorists", "destroyed the cars used for the terrorist attack" and killed "all the passengers". It is also announced that the armed forces "has demolished several terrorist hideouts containing weapons and ammunition". The destruction of vehicles and the killing of at least 15 people after the attack on the Al Rawdah mosque was reported yesterday by news sites.
They arrived aboard 4 off-road vehicles, planted bombs in a Sufi mosque in Sinai, detonated them and started shooting at worshippers. Carrying out a real carnage that left at least 235 dead on the ground and injured more than 100 people in what is currently the bloodiest attack to hit Egypt. What was overwhelmed by the terrorist fury was a place of Sufi worship, a mystical orientation of Islam that the Islamic State considers apostate and heretical, near the town of Bir al-Abd. No one has yet claimed responsibility but suspicions point to Isis. The jihadists - according to reconstructions still confused in the evening - opened fire on the approximately 300 faithful gathered in the mosque for Friday prayers with automatic weapons but also rocket launchers. Photos also show signs of an explosion inside the Al Rawdah place of worship that the commandos besieged, blocking the escape routes of the terrified faithful, also firing at the ambulances that rushed. A planned attack, probably also aimed at the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Who was quick to say he was ready for a "brutal" response.
In a dramatic televised address to the nation Sisi announced a response even stronger in the war that Egypt is carrying out against terrorism on behalf of "the whole world". And already in the evening he ordered the first air raids and artillery shelling that hit two trucks carrying at least 15 people "involved in the attack". In the context of what has already been renamed "operation-revenge for the martyrs", we can therefore expect a resurgence of military operations which are frequently carried out in the north of the peninsula of an Egypt already in a state of emergency after the attacks on Christian churches last April.
The attack in the evening had not yet been claimed, but Isis has attacked the Sufi community in the past, beheading last year, among others, a prominent, almost centenary and blind prelate, Suleiman Abu Heraz, and a 'master' of Islamic doctrines. Today's massacre, which is close to that of the Al Shabaab massacre in Mogadishu, has triggered a series of demonstrations of solidarity with Egypt and its fight against the Islamic State. President Sergio Mattarella has sent Sisi a message in which he assures that "Egypt will always be able to count on Italy's determined support". “It was not just a terrorist attack but a chilling massacre. Our thoughts go out to that community”, said the premier, Paolo Gentiloni, in line with a myriad of acts of solidarity started by the UN, from the major Western chancelleries up to including the Tel Aviv municipality building illuminated with the colors of the Egyptian flag.
