On New Year's Eve, Muslim suicide bombers blew up worshippers emerging from a midnight Mass at Al-Qiddissine church in Alexandria, Egypt. Twenty two people were killed and more than eighty were wounded. Only eight of the dead could be identified. The other fourteen bodies were so ripped up by heavy metal objects used as shrapnel that they were unrecognizable. Information about whom the body parts might belong to is being painstakingly gathered from reports of who attended the service.
It was the worst violence against Egypt's beleaguered Christian minority in a decade.
Joseph Nasralla is the producer of TheWayTv,
atvsat.com/, a television station for the Coptic community both in Egypt and in the United States. Now a resident of California, he was a speaker at a New York City rally to stop the Ground Zero mosque,
ihadwatch.org. Mr. Nasralla stays in close touch with what is happening in Egypt and in a phone interview on January 1, 2011, he gave this report of what happened that horrible night.
At 12:20 a suicide bomber detonated himself outside the church, targeting those who had already exited the building. Then at 12:35 there was another suicide bomb blast inside the church, which set the church on fire. It took one full hour for the police and ambulances to arrive at the scene. During that time, terrified and enraged Christians poured into the street, which was strewn with the bodies of those with whom they had moments before shared worship of a loving God. The survivors heard delighted shouts of Allahu Ackbar from the Muslims in a mosque next door and then fighting broke out between the Christians and the Muslims. When the police finally arrived, they turned their rubber bullets mainly on the Christians.
Mr. Nasralla expressed fears that Copts would face another massive attack when they celebrate their Christmas eve on January 6, 2011. This is a reasonable fear in light of recent attacks and threats. Last year, six Copts were killed and nine were wounded as they emerged from services on Christmas eve in a town in southern Egypt.
aina.org In Sweden, threats against the tiny Coptic community there forced the church to close down for several weeks, possibly extending even through Christmas day on January 7, 2011.
vladtepesblog.com. In Iraq, Christians sadly decided to cancel Christmas celebrations this year after a massive attack by al Qaida on a Baghdad church on October 31, 2010 left sixty-eight dead. Al Qaida is working itself up over implausible claims that Egyptian Copts are holding two Muslim women against their will.
The next logical step for al Qaida would be to blow up more Copts during their Christmas celebration.
So, what should be done to prevent what appears to be the scheduled execution of the Copts who go to church?
Copts are not allowed to have firearms, and from what I understand, they are too obedient to break the law and own guns. Keep in mind that before the Islamic invasion nearly 1400 years ago Egypt was all Christian and Jewish and now what is left of the Christians --
in their own land - makes up only ten percent of the total population even as their Muslim overlords grow increasingly hostile. If ever there was a human population that could be called an 'endangered species' it would be the Copts.
Mr. Nasralla told me that he wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking for the same kind of help from the US that knocked down Saddam Hussein's sadistic rule in Iraq.
Will the US intervene? They should, and perhaps with enough persuasion from citizens their hand can be forced. But if the US does not step in, it is up to strong minded, able bodied young men from across the globe -
who hate sharia- to step up to the challenge of protecting innocent lives.
Madeline Brooks is a counter-jihad activist based in New York City. Madeline can be reached at: Resistjihad@aol.com
