By New York Times –
Islamist militants sprayed gunfire and exploded bombs at a crowded Sufi mosque near Egypt’s Sinai coast on Friday, killing at least 85 people and wounding dozens more, Egyptian state news media said.
Attacks on mosques are rare in Egypt, where the Islamic State has mostly targeted Christian churches and security officials in recent years. So the attack on the mosque in Bir al-Abed, 125 miles northeast of Cairo, sent shock waves across the country.
The attackers traveled in four-wheel-drive vehicles and exploded bombs inside the mosque, then sprayed worshipers with gunfire as they fled, state media reported. A military official said that a suicide bomber was involved in the attack.
The attackers lingered at the scene even as emergency workers arrived to treat the injured, and opened fire on several ambulances, Ahmed el-Ansari, a senior government health official, told state television.
The worshipers at the mosque were Sufi Muslims, who practice a mystical form of Islam that some orthodox Muslims and Sunni extremists consider heretical.
State media said at least 85 people (later revised to at least 120 people) had been killed in the attack, and at least 75 more wounded. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi convened an emergency meeting of top security officials.
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