Islamist militants killed a Coptic priest in Northern Sinai,Egypt on Saturday afternoon.The priest,Mina Aboud Sharween,39,was killed in a driveby shooting while walking in the provincial capital,El Arish,by attackers on a motorbike.
The extremists also sprayed four military checkpoints in the area with bullets.On Friday,they killed five police officers in El Arish.The rampage is seen as a response to the sacking of former president Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian army last week when he failed to reach an accommodation with throngs of protestors in the Egyptian capital,Cairo.
Coptic Pope Tawadros II expressed his support for the military intervention and was present at the announcement of the move by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,commander of the Egyptian army.
There are some eight million Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt,as well as a small number of Greek Orthodox in the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa-perhaps 20,000.There have been sporadic violent clashes between Coptic Christian and Muslim Egyptians in recent years.
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