Mideast Christians easy target for Qaeda — analysts
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DUBAI — Al-Qaeda would seem to have found an easy target in Middle Eastern Christians who have a limited ability to respond, but such attacks could easily escalate into sectarian clashes, analysts say.
Responsibility for the apparent suicide bombing early on New Year’s Day at a Coptic church in Alexandria in which 21 persons were killed and 79 were wounded has not yet been claimed, although Cairo has indirectly implicated al-Qaeda.
In claiming an October attack on a church in Baghdad in which 46 Christians were killed, al-Qaeda affiliate the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) also threatened the Coptic church, accusing it of holding against their will two priests’ wives they say had converted to Islam.
And in December, al-Qaeda-linked Web site Shumukh al-Islam had al-Qiddissin (The Saints) church in Alexandria, where Saturday’s bombing took place, on a list of targeted Coptic places of worship..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110105com3.html
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