Egyptian academic blames US, Israel for church attack

From Al Masry al-Youm:

An Alexandria University professor has accused Israel and the US of being behind the New Year's church bombing in Alexandria that killed 23 and injured around 100.

Ismail Saad, professor of political sociology at Alexandria University, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Israel, the US and Europe all seek to provoke unrest in Egypt so that its attention will be focused on internal issues.

Saad pointed to attempts to limit Egypt's political role in the region and said that his country was besieged by several powers. "First, they bombed a church, but then they will do it to a mosque," he said.

The professor said he believed that restoring ties with Turkey and Iran is the best way to confront external pressures.

Saad maintained that the Alexandria blast demonstrates plots against Egypt, ruling out the possibility of the culprit being Egyptian.

So I guess this guy was really a Mossad agent:

CAIRO (AFP) - A policeman shot dead a Christian on a train in Egypt Tuesday and wounded five other people, including the man's wife, as tensions remain high after a New Year's church bombing killed 21 people, the interior ministry said.

The shooter's motives were not immediately clear, but the ministry said at least four of the five people hurt were Coptic Christians.

And a Coptic bishop told AFP that the gunman, named by the ministry as Amer Ashur Abdel Zaher, had sought out Christians on board the train and shouted a Muslim slogan -- Allahu Akbar -- as he opened fire.

The policeman, who was said to be on his way to work, boarded a stationary Cairo-bound train at Samalut, in the southern Minya province, and began shooting with his service weapon, the ministry said.

He killed Fathi Said Ebeid, aged 71, and wounded his 61-year-old wife.

Two of the others wounded were said to be in critical condition.

And a detail:

Sources said the assailant had checked passengers for the green cross traditionally tattooed on the wrists of Coptic Christians in Egypt. After identifying several Copts, the culprit killed one of them and injured five others.