A Christian Was Killed in Egypt And Five More Were Wounded

A Christian man was killed in Egypt and five more were wounded on Tuesday in an attack on a train, state-run agency MENA reported, citing local security sources. The motives of the attack was not clear.

Sources report that the assassin was a policeman that was off duty and the man who was killed was a 71-year-old man. The shooter was identified as Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher, a policeman working near a town with Christian majority.

The attacker was apprehended by the police.

The attack comes 10 days after the suicide bombing in Alexandria, when 23 people were killed outside the Church of the Two Saints, thus provoking the fury of the Christian community in Egypt.

The relation between Christian Copts and the Muslim majority of the country was rather tense until Coptic Christmas on January 7, when police staged a large-scale security operation to protect those who were attending mass.

In a gesture of solidarity, Egyptian Muslim people attended the Christmas mass in an attempt to offer Christians a human shield against attacks of the Islamic terrorists.

Many demonstrations were staged in different Christian centers, almost every night since the bombing on January 1.

Copts all over the world were threatened by an Al-Qaeda-related website, which published a list of the Coptic churches that were going to be targeted by the terrorists.

That determined many Coptic communities to ask European countries to ensure their safety. Consequently, alert level was raised in many capitals of Europe and North America, and security measures were employed.

The killing of the Egyptian Christian comes at a time when Egyptian authorities recalled their ambassador to Vatican for consultation after the Pope Benedict XVI urged Egypt to do more to ensure the safety of its Christian citizens.

The Egyptian spokesman for Foreign Affairs Ministry considered pope’s words as interference in internal affairs of their country.