More than 230 people were killed after suspected militants groups targeted a Mosque with bombs and gunfire in Bir Al-Abed, in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt during local Friday prayers. Egyptian media predicts that these numbers will still add up in the coming hours as the search and rescue operation ensues after the deadliest terror attack in the country’s recent memory.
According to BBC, it is the deadliest attack of its kind since an Islamist insurgency in the peninsula was stepped up in 2013.
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi called an urgent meeting of the Security Committee, which includes the ministers of defense and interior and the head of the General Intelligence Service vowing to respond with “brute force.”
State media reports that gunmen have surrounded the Al-Rawdah Mosque in off-road vehicles, set off the bomb in the packed Mosque where a ceremony was being held, then gunned down panicked survivors as they tried to flee the vicinity.
No militant group affiliated with the Islamic State is yet to take responsibility for the attack in Egypt. Such groups have been responsible for several deadly attacks in the region although they usually target security forces and Christian churches.
Egyptian journalist Samer Al-Atrush says the mosque is associated with Sufis , and reportedly with the Jariri order, which the IS singled out as especially heretical in an interview with its “morality police” chief in Sinai.
At least 235 people killed and another 109 injured in the attack on a mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai region, state-run reports, making it one of the deadliest attacks ever carried out against civilians in the province https://t.co/IxAIJeWs5m pic.twitter.com/oS0bzu3N0l
— CNN (@CNN) November 24, 2017
Internationally muted
Meanwhile, international media is accused of being muted in providing relevant updates and sending correspondents to the terror site because it has happened on the wrong side of the world.
In a lengthy tweet, Independent reporter and columnist Shehab Khan is accusing the media of being mum about the tragedy, saying the following.
“One the greatest tragedies of the human race is that we selectively grieve and value life in certain areas more than others. At least 235 people have died in a terror attack in Egypt but the response and coverage is muted just because it occurred on the wrong side of the planet.”
Although he admits to being guilty about it, he has explained that what he said was just an observation.
Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter advocate Luke Waltham also condemns the silenced media, saying , “An awful terrorist attack has taken place in Egypt and I don’t hear a large outcry that usually happens. Why? Because it didn’t take place in a Western country.”
[Featured Image by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images]
