The death toll in a bomb attack on a packed mosque in Egypt’ s restive North Sinai province has risen to 235.
Gunmen attacked set off a bomb , killing at least 235 people in one of the country’ s deadliest attacks in recent memory , state media reported .
A bomb explosion ripped through the Rawda mosque roughly 40 kilometres west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish before gunmen opened fire on the worshippers gathered for weekly Friday prayers, officials said .
Witnesses said the assailants had surrounded the mosque with all- terrain vehicles then planted a bomb outside .
The gunmen then mowed down the panicked worshippers as they attempted to flee and used the congregants ’ vehicles they had set alight to block routes to the mosque .
State television reported at least 184 people were killed and 125 wounded in the attack , which is unprecedented in a four- year insurgency by Islamist extremist groups .
Egypt’ s presidency declared three days of mourning , state television reported , as President Abdel Fattah al- Sisi met his security ministers to follow developments .
Ahmed Abul Gheit , head of the Arab League which is based in Cairo , condemned the “ terrifying crime which again shows that Islam is innocent of those who follow extremist terrorist ideology , ” his spokesman said in a statement .
– IS views Sufis as heretics –
The Islamic State group ’ s Egypt branch has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, and also civilians accused of working with the authorities , in attacks in the north of the Sinai peninsula .
They have also targeted followers of the mystical Sufi branch of Sunni Islam as well as Christians.
The victims included civilians and conscripts praying at the mosque .
A tribal leader and head of a Bedouin militia that fights IS told AFP that the mosque is known as a place of gathering for Sufis .
The Islamic State group shares the puritan Salafi view of Sufis as heretics for seeking the intercession of saints .
The jihadists had previously kidnapped and beheaded an elderly Sufi leader , accusing him of practising magic which Islam forbids , and abducted Sufi practitioners later released after “repenting . ”
The group has killed more than 100 Christians in church bombings and shootings in Sinai and other parts of Egypt, forcing many to flee the peninsula .
The military has struggled to quell the jihadists who pledged allegiance to IS in November 2014 .
IS regularly conducts attacks against soldiers and policemen in the peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip , although the frequency and scale of such attacks has diminished over the past year.
The jihadists have since increasingly turned to civilian targets , attacking not only Christians and Sufis but also Bedouin Sinai inhabitants accused of working with the army .
Aside from IS , Egypt also faces a threat from Al - Qaeda - aligned jihadists who operate out of neighbouring Libya.
A group calling itself Ansar al - Islam — Supporters of Islam in Arabic — claimed an October ambush in Egypt ’ s Western Desert that killed at least 16 policemen.
Many of those killed belonged to the interior ministry ’ s secretive National Security Service .
The military later conducted air strikes on the attackers , killing their leader Emad al- Din Abdel Hamid , a most wanted jihadist who was a military officer before joining an Al - Qaeda -affiliated group in Libya ’ s militant stronghold of Derna .http://punchng.com/breaking-death-toll-in-egypt-mosque-attack-rises-to-235/

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This is totally condemnable act of wickedness
May God comfort the families of the victims.

RIP to the dead
And quick recovery to the injured

this is what i call getting paid in your own penny