The video below us Abu Abdallah al-Masri, a 22-year-old suicide bomber, entered the chapel next to St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt. Moments later, he detonated a 12kg bomb which later resulted to the death of 19 adults and 6 children, with 49 people injured at the same time.
The footage, taken outside the chapel, shows us Al-Masri crossing the street and walking through the gates of the church. Explosion shortly follows afterwards.
Photo credit: YouTube
According to Unilad, this tragedy was “one of the deadliest attacks in recent memory to target Egypt’s Christian population” A series of protests were eventually held outside the church as Christians blamed the government for its failure to protect them.
Nader Shokry, an activist, said:
“How did all this planning take place without the security knowing about it?
“You are saying that this person belongs to a terror group and has been previously arrested. So you should have kept a close eye on him.”
Egypt’s Interior Ministry has stated that Al-Masri was part of a terror cell funded by Muslim Brotherhood leaders exiled in Qatar. Despite that, ISIS claimed responsibility for the chapel bombing.
Reports tell us that three men and a woman have already been arrested in connection with the attack.
You can watch the raw footage here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoXd6zKcGe0
Where Did ISIS Come From?
According to an article by CNN entitled ‘ISIS: Everything you need to know,’ the group had its roots “in 2004 as al Qaeda in Iraq, before rebranding as ISIS two years later. It was an ally of — and had similarities with — Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda: both were radical anti-Western militant groups devoted to establishing an independent Islamic state in the region.”
However, “ISIS – unlike al Qaeda, which disowned the group in early 2014 – has proven to be more brutal and more effective at controlling territory it has seized,” CNN said.