Islamic hardliners suspected of church suicide bombing

• Grief and anger among the congregation yesterday in the wake of the suicide attack. Picture: Ben Curtis /AP

The suicide attack in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria struck Coptic Christian worshippers as they were leaving midnight Mass about 30 minutes into the new year. About 100 people were wounded. Dozens returned to pray yesterday in the blood-spattered Saints Church, grieving and angry.

Christians staged demonstrations in at least three cities to protest about what they see as the government's failure to protect their community, but police moved quickly to break up the gatherings. In Alexandria, about 200 Christians protested near the bombed church.

"We are not going to remain silent," chanted the demonstrators. "Oh Mubarak, the hearts of the Copts are on fire," they said, in a message for Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak.

In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI said the attack "offends God and all of humanity".

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing. Mr Mubarak had blamed foreigners and the Alexandria governor accused al-Qaeda, pointing to threats made against Christians by the terrorist network's branch in the country.

But yesterday security officials said police are looking at the possibility that Islamic hard-liners based in Alexandria were behind the attack, and perhaps were inspired by al-Qaeda though not directly under a foreign command. The officials also said 25 people have been detained for questioning,

Egypt's government has long insisted that al-Qaeda does not have a significant presence in the country, and it has never been conclusively linked to any attacks here. However, Egypt does have a rising movement of Islamic hard-liners who, while they do not advocate violence, adhere to an ideology similar in other ways to al-Qaeda.

"We spend every holiday in grief," said Sohair Fawzy, who lost two sisters and a niece.

Inside the church, the floor was still stained with blood, two statues were toppled and benches were scattered by the impact of the blast. A wooden cross hanging on the church gate was covered with a white sheet stained with the victims' blood and pieces of human flesh remained stuck on the gate.

Young men prevented cleaners from removing the flesh. "Leave them. This is pure blood," one of the men shouted.

Father Maqar, who led the service, said afterwards: "I tell Christians to pray and pray to ease their agony."

Egypt's top Muslim cleric, Grand Sheik of al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, visited Pope Shenouda III, spiritual leader of Egypt's Orthodox Copts, in Cairo yesterday to offer his condolences.Al-Qaeda's branch in Iraq has vowed to attack Christians over the cases of two Egyptian Christian women who sought to convert to Islam. The women, who were married to priests in the Coptic Orthodox Church, were prohibited from divorcing their husbands and sought to convert as a way out.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq cited the case of the women in a claim of responsibility for the attack on a Baghdad church in October that killed 68 people.