Islamic State (Isis) has claimed responsibility for the deadly suicide bomb attack on the largest Christian church in Cairo. According to a statement circulating on social media on Tuesday (13 December), the terror group announced they were behind the attack that killed 25 people, including the bomber, and wounded a further 49 worshippers.

The bomb exploded on 11 December in a chapel adjoining St Mark's Cathedral, Cairo's largest church and the seat of the Coptic papacy. Although security is usually tight, Egyptian officials say that a bomb containing at least 12 kg of TriNitroToluene (TNT) exploded on a side of the church normally used by women.

In the statement, the extremists say they killed and wounded nearly 80 "crusaders" and warn "disbelievers and apostates in #Egypt and everywhere". They add that they plan to "continue to spill their blood and grill their bodies".

They identified the suicide bomber as Abu Abdallah al-Masri, who is said to have detonated his explosive belt inside the church after sidestepping normally stringent security.

"Every infidel and apostate in Egypt and everywhere should know that our war continues," the group said in the statement, published by the Isis-affiliated Amaq news agency.

Egyptian authorities had earlier named Mahmoud Shafik Mohammed Mostafa, 22, whose nom-de-guerre was Abu Dajjana al-Kanani, from the town of Fayyoum south of Cairo, as the suicide bomber. Isis made no reference to him in their statement

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, speaking at a state funeral for the victims, said that four people had been detained, including a woman, and security forces were seeking two more people believed to be involved.

He said "The attack brought us great pain but we will never be torn apart," according to Reuters. "We will only be much stronger. We will hold steadfast and, God willing, we will succeed."

The Egyptian state news agency for the Middle East and North Africa​ (MENA) reported that three of those arrested were from Fayyoum while a fourth is from Cairo suburb Matariya. Both areas are associated with strong support for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party.

On the same day. six policemen were killed and three others injured in Cairo when a bomb exploded at a police checkpoint on a road leading to the Giza pyramids.

This would not be the first time that Isis has targeted the Christian sect, in February 2015, Isis circulated images of their militants executing 21 Coptic Christians who had been kidnapped from Sirte, Libya. In response Egypt launched air strikes targeting Isis positions.

Approximately 10% of the Egyptian population are Coptic Christians. The Church has around one million members outside Egypt. It has a cathedral under construction in the UK, in Birmingham. </s> Two explosions at Coptic churches in Egypt on Sunday have left at leat 23 people dead. At least 21 people were killed in an explosion at a Coptic church in Tanta, an Egyptian city located 130 kilometres from the capital, Cairo. Hours later, an explosion at St Mark Coptic Cathedral in Alexandria claimed two lives and injured several others, while Coptic Pope Tawadros II was inside it.

Investigators looking into the Tanta incident have not yet announced what caused the blast or who was behind it. Local channels claimed dozens, possibly more than 50, were injured. An official toll has not been announced yet.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi said the injured are to be treated at military hospitals, local news channels reported. Principal Governor Ahmad Deif told the Al Arabiya news channel that either a bomb went of or a suicide attackers was involved. Security forces later searched the church for other explosive devices, but found none.

The blast at the Mar Girgis Coptic Church took place while it was full of people observing Palm Sunday, an especially holy day for the community. Palm Sunday is a feast that takes place seven days before Easter and marks the day Jesus entered Jerusalem.

Coptic Christians make up about 10% of Egypt’s population, and have often faced attacks by armed groups, in particular the Islamic State outfit, in the past. In December, at least 25 people were killed and another 35 wounded after a bomb exploded in Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo. The blast had taken place near the outer wall of St Mark’s Cathedral, which is the seat of the country’s Orthodox Christian Church and its spiritual leader, Pope Tawadros II. The Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for it.

Pope Francis is expected to visit Egypt later this year. </s> At least 27 people have been killed in an explosion inside a church in the Egyptian Nile Delta city of Tanta, state media reported, as another blast killed 16 in front of a church in the coastal city of Alexandria.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group on Sunday claimed responsibility for both attacks, in a statement via its Amaq website. It said they were carried out by two of its fighters wearing suicide vests.

Following the blasts, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered troops be deployed across the country to help secure "vital facilities" and said a three-month state of emergency would be imposed.

The first attack occurred in the Coptic church of Mar Girgis, also known as St George, which was packed with worshippers marking Palm Sunday, a Christian feast commemorating the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem.

Egypt's state television reported that at least 71 people were wounded in the attack.

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Several hours after the bombing in Tanta, another explosion hit in front of Saint Mark's church in Alexandria, where Coptic Pope Tawadros II was leading a service.

Egypt's state media said at least 16 people, including seven police officers, were killed in the suicide bomb attack.

Some on social media praised at least two police officers who they say stopped the bomber from entering the church. They were killed in the blast.

Witnesses in Tanta described a bloody and chaotic scene.

"Lots of bodies were torn apart and scattered on the floor," said one man who was standing on the church's altar when the bomb exploded.

READ MORE: Egypt's Coptic Christians flee Sinai after killings

Another witness said she saw flames flaring up to the church ceiling.

"There was thick smoke, I couldn't see anyone," she said. "We heard voices telling us to leave quickly. People were pushing so much that the gate bent."

Samer Shehata, associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera the attacks show a "tremendous security lapse" by Egyptian authorities.

"In the last few months, there has been an increased number of attacks on Egyptian Copts, individually, as well as on churches," Shehata said, adding that the church in Tanta received a threat 10 days ago.

"I do think this represents a lack of seriousness on the part of the state in really securing the Coptic community and places that could potentially be attacked."

Timothy Kaldas, non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said the attacks were designed to create religious strife.

"It is alarming to see a specific religious group being targeted, which is going to rattle the Coptic community and many Egyptians in general," Kaldas told Al Jazeera.

Copts repeatedly targeted

The bombings were the latest in a series of assaults on Egypt's Christian minority, who make up about 10 percent of the population and have been repeatedly targeted by armed groups.

They also come just weeks before Pope Francis is due to visit Egypt.

CBC TV showed footage from inside the church in Tanta, with a large number of people gathered around what appeared to be lifeless, bloody bodies covered with papers.

A bombing at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people and wounded 49 in December, many of them women and children, in the deadliest attack on Egypt's Christian minority in years. </s> A bomb blast at a church north of Cairo killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens who had gathered for Palm Sunday mass, officials said, in the latest apparent attack on Egypt’s Coptic Christians.

Some 71 people were wounded in the blast, which struck at a Coptic Church in the Nile Delta City of Tanta, 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of Cairo, according to a health ministry toll.

Images broadcast by private television stations showed bloodstains smearing the whitewashed walls of the church next to shredded wooden benches.

Palm Sunday is one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar, marking the triumphant entrance of Jesus to Jerusalem.

“The explosion took place in the front rows, near the altar, during the mass,” General Tarek Atiya, the deputy to Egypt’s interior minister in charge of relations with the media, told AFP.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s blast.

Copts, who make up about one tenth of Egypt’s population of more than 92 million and who celebrate Easter next weekend, have been targeted by several attacks in recent months.

Pope Francis is due to visit Cairo on April 28-29 to show solidarity with Egypt’s Christian community.

Jihadists and Islamists accuse Copts of supporting the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, which ushered in a deadly crackdown on his supporters.

In December, a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group killed 29 worshippers during Sunday mass in Cairo.

The bombing of the church within a compound that also holds the seat of the Coptic papacy was the deadliest attack against the minority in recent memory.

A spate of jihadist-linked attacks in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula, including the murder of a Copt in the city of El Arish whose house was also burned, have led some Coptic families to flee their homes.

About 250 Christians took refuge in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya after IS released a video in February calling for attacks on the religious minority.

“Terrorism hits Egypt again, this time on Palm Sunday,” he tweeted.

The Cairo-based Al-Azhar, an influential Sunni Muslim authority, said Sunday’s bombing aimed to “destabilise security and… the unity of Egyptians”.

Egypt’s Copts have endured successive attacks since Morsi’s ouster in July 2013.

More than 40 churches were attacked nationwide in the two weeks after the deadly dispersal by security forces of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo on August 14, 2013, Human Rights Watch said.

Amnesty International later said more than 200 Christian-owned properties were attacked and 43 churches seriously damaged, adding that at least four people were killed.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who as then army chief helped remove Morsi, has defended his security forces and accused jihadists of attacking Copts in order to divide the country.

In October 2011, almost 30 people — mostly Coptic Christians — were killed after the army charged at a protest outside the state television building in Cairo to denounce the torching of a church in southern Egypt.

In May that year, clashes between Muslims and Copts left 15 dead in the working-class Cairo neighbourhood of Imbaba where two churches were attacked.

A few months earlier, the unclaimed bombing of a Coptic church killed more than 20 people in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria on New Year’s Day.

Pope Francis will visit the site of the December church attack next to Saint Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral — the seat of Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II. </s> The attacks in the Nile Delta cities of Tanta and Alexandria followed a Cairo church bombing in December and came weeks before a planned visit by Catholic Pope Francis intended to show support for Egypt’s Christian minority.

Sisi declared the “three-month” state of emergency, which he must present to parliament within a week, during a defiant speech warning that the war against the jihadists “will be long and painful”.

The first bombing at the Mar Girgis church in Tanta city north of Cairo killed 27 people, the health ministry said.

Emergency services had scrambled to the scene when another blast rocked St Mark’s church in Alexandria where Coptic Pope Tawadros II had been leading a Palm Sunday service.

Seventeen people including at least four police officers were killed in that attack, which the interior ministry said was caused by a suicide bomber who blew himself up when prevented from entering the church.

The ministry said Tawadros was unharmed, and a church official said he left before the explosion.

The private CBC Extra channel aired footage of the Alexandria blast, with CCTV showing what appeared to be the church entrance engulfed in flame and flying concrete moments after a guard turned a man away.

Eyewitnesses said a police officer detected the bomber before he blew himself up.

At least 78 people were wounded in Tanta and 40 in Alexandria, the health ministry said.

Egyptian officials denounced the violence as an attempt to sow divisions, and Pop Francis sent his “deep condolences” to Tawadros.

IS claimed two Egyptian suicide bombers carried out both attacks and threatened further attacks in a statement published on social media.

After the bombings, Sisi ordered military deployments to guard “vital and important infrastructure”, his office said.

State television reported that the interior minister sacked the provincial head of security and replaced him after the attack.

“I heard the blast and came running. I found people torn up... some people, only half of their bodies remained,” Nabil Nader, who lives in front of the Tanta church, said.

At St Mark’s in Alexandria, at night the bodies were brought in wooden coffins decorated with golden crosses to the church yard where hundreds of sad and angry Copts gathered and a priest was saying prayers.

A Muslim funeral was also held in El Behira province for one of the four policemen killed in the St Mark’s attack.

Worshippers had been celebrating Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar, marking Jesus’s triumphant entrance to Jerusalem.

Egypt had been ruled under emergency law – which allows police expanded powers of arrest and surveillance – for decades before 2012.

Pope Francis, who is due in Cairo on April 28-29, offered prayers for the victims.

“Let us pray for the victims of the attack unfortunately carried out today,” he said.

“May the Lord convert the heart of those who sow terror, violence and death and also the heart of those who make weapons and trade in them.”

Copts, who make up about one tenth of Egypt’s population of more than 92 million and who celebrate Easter next weekend, have been targeted by several attacks in recent months.

Jihadists and Islamists accuse Copts of supporting the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, which ushered in a deadly crackdown on his supporters.

In December, a suicide bombing claimed by IS killed 29 worshippers in a Cairo church.

The group later released a video threatening Egypt’s Christians with more attacks.

A spate of jihadist-linked attacks in the restive Sinai Peninsula, including the murder of a Copt in the city of El Arish, led some Coptic families to flee.

“So sad to hear of the terrorist attack in Egypt. US strongly condemns. I have great confidence that President Al Sisi will handle situation properly,” he tweeted.

UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed the hope that the perpetrators will be swiftly brought to justice after a Security Council statement condemned the bombings as “heinous” and “cowardly”.

The Cairo-based Al-Azhar, an influential Sunni Muslim authority, said the attacks aimed to “destabilise security and... the unity of Egyptians”.

Egypt’s Copts have endured successive attacks since Morsi’s ouster in July 2013.

More than 40 churches were targeted nationwide in the two weeks after the deadly dispersal by security forces of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo on August 14 that year, Human Rights Watch said.

Sisi, who as then army chief helped remove Morsi, has defended his security forces and accused jihadists of attacking Copts in order to divide the country.

In October 2011, almost 30 people – mostly Coptic Christians – were killed outside the state television building in Cairo after the army charged at protesters denouncing the torching of a church in southern Egypt.

A few months earlier, the unclaimed New Year’s Day bombing of a Coptic church killed more than 20 people in second city Alexandria. </s> Egyptian clergymen and officials carry the coffins of the victims of a church bombing in Cairo, on December 12, 2016. By Khaled DESOUKI (AFP)

Cairo (AFP) - Egypt said Monday it had arrested four people suspected of involvement in a devastating bombing of a Cairo Coptic church, as grief-stricken mourners gathered for the funeral of the 24 dead.

The bombing at the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church on Sunday was the deadliest attack in recent memory on the Christian minority, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, speaking at the funeral, said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who had been identified as 22-year-old Mahmoud Shafik Mohamed Mostafa.

One of the four people arrested was a woman, Sisi said, and authorities were looking for two other suspects he did not identify.

Most of the victims were women, authorities have said.

The attack occurred during Sunday service at the church adjacent to Saint Mark's Cathedral, the seat of Coptic Pope Tawadros II.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the bombing, but Coptic Christians have been previously targeted in Egypt.

Wooden coffins, each bearing a cross, were covered with the country's flag and lined up at the Saint Mary and Saint Athanasius Coptic Orthodox Church in the Nasr City district on Monday.

A woman who lost two daughters in the attack cried and fell to the ground next to their coffins as other mourners prayed silently.

In the streets of Nasr City, Sisi and Tawadros led mourners dressed in black behind soldiers carrying the coffins of the victims.

Troops marched to the sound of military music.

"This blow has caused us a lot of pain, but never will we let it break us," Sisi said.

Pope Tawadros II said: "We are hurting from this evil."

Sunday's blast was the worst attack on the Coptic Christian community since a 2011 suicide bombing killed more than 20 worshippers outside a church in the coastal city of Alexandria.

Copts have faced persecution and discrimination dating back to the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled by a popular uprising in 2011.

After the 2013 ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi, his Islamist supporters accused the Christian community of supporting his overthrow.

They pointed to the appearance of Tawadros next to Sisi in July 2013, when the then army chief -- also surrounded by Muslim and opposition figures -- announced Morsi's removal on television.

Following the deadly dispersal by security forces of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo in August 2013, at least 42 churches were attacked, as well as dozens of schools, houses and businesses belonging to Copts, according to Human Rights Watch.

"Egypt's authorities have for many years failed to protect the personal safety or basic rights of Coptic citizens," HRW said on Monday.

Analysts said Sunday's bombing revealed the weaknesses of the government, which human rights groups have slammed for its brutal crackdown on Islamists.

Victor Salama, a politics professor at Cairo University, said the attack could be in retaliation for the church's perceived support for Sisi's administration.

The Islamists "could be saying they're making the Copts pay for their support for the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood," said Salama.

"It's a slap for the government. The Coptic church is Christian of course, but it's also an Egyptian institution that was easily destroyed with just 12 kilogrammes of explosives," said Salama.

Abdalla al-Sennawi, a columnist at the privately owned Al-Shorouk newspaper, agreed that the attack could be seen as "a sort of revenge" against the Copts.

But the bombing also "reveals the absence of any real strategy to fight terrorism and the carelessness of the security services", he said.

"Such attacks may repeat themselves if the role of security services is not reviewed."

Egypt is fighting a jihadist insurgency that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.

On Friday, two bombings killed six policemen in Cairo and a civilian north of the capital in attacks claimed by the Hassam militant group.

Hazem Hosni, a politics professor at Cairo university, said: "The objective of this attack will be truly known only if the perpetrators of the attack are identified or if they claim it."

Sunday's bombing "will have great international impact because those targeted are Christians", he said.

Egypt has jailed thousands and sentenced hundreds of Islamists to death since Morsi's ouster. </s> A man being chased by police detonated explosives near Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque, killing himself and two of the officers, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said Monday.

Three other police were wounded in the blast, which occurred at around 9.00 pm.

Police had previously identified the man as the perpetrator of an attempted bombing last Friday at another mosque in the capital, Al-Istiqama, just as worshippers were leaving after mid-day prayers, the ministry said in a statement.

Security forces established a perimeter around the crime scene in the Gamaliya district of central Cairo, which includes the well-known Khan el-Khalili tourist marketplace as well as Al-Azhar.

When police caught up to the suspect, "one of the explosive devices in his possession exploded, causing the death of the terrorist and the martyrdom of a police officer from national security and an officer from Cairo investigations (department)," the Interior Ministry said.

The Egyptian army said over the weekend that troops killed seven "terrorists" in the northern Sinai peninsula following an attack by militants.

While Egyptian officials offered no details on the original attack, other Arab governments offered condolences to the families of 15 people killed and wounded.

A police officer died on Jan. 5 as he tried to deactivate a bomb discovered near a Christian church in Cairo just two days ahead of the Coptic Christmas.

That incident came a week after the deaths of three Vietnamese tourists and their Egyptian guide when a bomb went off a tour bus en route to the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of the capital.

The Giza blast was Egypt's first attack against tourists using explosives since late 2015, when a bomb blew a Russian airliner out of the skies above Sinai, killing all 224 people aboard.

Egypt responded to the Giza incident with raids near Cairo and in Sinai that resulted in the deaths of 40 suspected extremists.

This nation of nearly 100,000 people has been under a state of emergency since April 2017, following a series of terrorist attacks against Coptic Christian churches in the Nile delta.

The Egyptian affiliate of Islamic State has claimed responsibility for most of the terrorist activity in the country during the last five years. </s> Egypt imposed a three-month nationwide state of emergency Monday as President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi sought to ease public anger and take a tougher stand against Islamic extremists after suicide bombings at two Coptic Christian churches killed 45 people.

A day after the Palm Sunday bloodshed, the Interior Ministry said it killed seven Islamic State militants in an exchange of gunfire during a security operation in the southern city of Assiut. The ministry alleged they were plotting attacks against Christians. It posted photos of corpses lying next to weapons and said IS publications were found with them.

A state of emergency already in place in the Sinai Peninsula has failed to halt near daily attacks against police and security forces by the Islamic State group in the volatile area.

Now the group is stepping up its attacks against Christians, who make up 10 per cent of the population, by moving its activities from the Sinai to other parts of Egypt. Its increasingly sophisticated tactics are likely to fuel sectarian tensions and embarrass el-Sissi.

The Palm Sunday bombings struck churches in the port city of Alexandria, the historic seat of Christendom in Egypt, and the city of Tanta. The head of the Coptic church, Pope Tawadros II, had been inside St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria when the bomber struck there but was unhurt.

“We are seeing simultaneous attacks, based on strong information, targeting big churches across the country. This is a very dangerous development,” said Mina Thabet, a rights researcher focusing on minorities.

“Christians are in a state of shock,” he added. “Attacks are recurrent, victims are falling in bigger numbers, and people live in fear and these groups are growing in power, number, and resources.”

There were scenes of grief and anguish Monday as mourners wailed during funerals at the sprawling St. Mina monastery on the outskirts of Alexandria. Some collapsed near the caskets, which bore the word “martyr.”

Similar scenes took place a day earlier at a church in Tanta, where victims were laid to rest in a place of honour.

On Sunday, the Rev. Danial Maher buried his 23-year-old son, Beshoy. He recalled watching him singing at the service before the attack at St. George’s Church in Tanta. “He was like an angel,” he said.

Photos of the elder Maher, sitting helplessly in his blood-stained vestments after the bombing, were widely circulated online.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks and identified the two attackers with names suggesting they were Egyptians. The group, which carried out a bombing at a Cairo church in December that killed 30 people, threatened more such violence, saying the blood of Christians would flow “like rivers.”

Coptic Christians have put their faith in el-Sissi, who championed himself as the bulwark against Islamists.

The former army chief met with U.S. President Donald Trump a week ago at the White House, seeking closer ties and discussing the fight against extremism. Trump spoke by phone Sunday with el-Sissi to express confidence that Egypt will do what it can “to protect Christians and all Egyptians.”

The latest IS attacks were a blow to el-Sissi’s image and left many Christians doubting whether he is capable of protecting them.

He sought to restore that confidence by imposing the state of emergency, declaring three days of mourning, deploying special forces to help police secure churches and other key installations, and ordering the formation of a new body called the “Supreme Council to Combat Terrorism and Fanaticism.”

Parliament has seven days to approve the state of emergency – an action seen as a foregone conclusion since the legislature is packed with el-Sissi supporters. The Cabinet declared it had gone into effect at 1 p.m.

In theory, it allows for arrests without warrants, the swift prosecution of suspects and the establishment of special courts. But authorities already have been waging a heavy crackdown on dissent for years, so it was unclear what would change.

A limited state of emergency and nightly curfew in the northern Sinai since 2014 has done little to stem violence there.

“We won’t see a change on the ground, as this decision wasn’t taken to give more powers or tighten control,” said political analyst Yasser Abdel-Aziz. “It’s a purely political decision that is meant to have a psychological impact.”

El-Sissi has clamped down on opponents since he led the military overthrow of an Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, who was elected in 2013. Security forces violently dispersed demonstrations in the months that followed, killing hundreds of protesters. Thousands were jailed, mainly Morsi supporters but also secular and liberal activists.

“The powers that the security agencies have already don’t need reinforcement by the state of emergency,” Abdel-Aziz said. “The status quo of media and press freedoms is ideal for the security authorities to work without much noise.”

Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch said el-Sissi “seems to think that more repression of all Egyptians is the simple answer to terrorist attacks.”

What Egypt needs, he said, are “fair trials, not emergency courts with no appeal, which is mainly what the latest declaration of a state of emergency will give him.”

Many believe the unraveling of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest and largest Islamist group, is creating new recruits for extremists.

The liberal Egyptian Social Democratic Party said the state of emergency could make things worse.

“Terrorism increased in the presence of the state of emergency,” said party leader Mohammed Arafat. “The real battle against terrorism starts with the execution of law on all without discrimination.”

The Palm Sunday attacks, the single deadliest day for Egypt’s Christians in decades, prompted messages of support from abroad, including from Pope Francis, who is to visit Egypt on April 28-29.

“This whole thing is to cause sectarian strife,” said Mona Makram, a former parliamentarian from a prominent Coptic family. “They want to show also that it is not only Sinai that will be targeted but the rest of the governorates.”

Israel shut its Taba border crossing to Egypt after its anti-terrorism office warned of an “imminent” attack there. The closure came hours before the start of Passover.

Soon afterward, sirens blared in parts of southern Israel, alerting residents to a rocket attack. The military said a rocket fired from Sinai hit a greenhouse but caused no injuries. The Islamic State claimed responsibility. </s> Relatives of a Christian woman who was killed in the bombing of Cairo’s main Coptic cathedral, carry her body to bury at the Mokattam Cemetery in Cairo, Egypt, on Monday (Reuters photo)

CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi said on Monday a suicide bomber carried out the attack that killed 24 people at Cairo's Coptic cathedral, the deadliest on the Christian minority in years.

Speaking at a state funeral for the victims, Sisi noted four people had been detained, including a woman, and security forces were seeking two more people believed to be involved. The bomber was a man wearing a suicide vest, he added

"The attack brought us great pain but we will never be torn apart," he said. "We will only be much stronger. We will hold steadfast and, God willing, we will succeed."

At least 24 people were killed and 49 wounded when a bomb exploded in a chapel adjoining St Mark's Cathedral, Cairo's largest church and seat of the Coptic papacy, where security is normally tight.

Security sources said a bomb containing at least 12kg of TNT exploded on a side of the church normally used by women.

Sisi did not name the organisation the attackers were believed to belong to. No group has claimed responsibility, but exiled Muslim Brotherhood officials and local militant groups have joined the international community in condemnation.

Only Daesh supporters celebrated on social media. The group has also claimed attacks in Cairo and urged its supporters to launch attacks around the world as it goes on the defensive in its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds.

The interior ministry released a picture of the bomber it identified as Mahmoud Shafik Mohamed Mostafa, 22, whose nom de guerre was Abu Dajjana Al Kanani. It also released an image of what it said was the battered head of the dead bomber, who hailed from the town of Fayyoum south of Cairo.

State news agency MENA reported that three of those arrested are also from Fayyoum while a fourth is from the Cairo suburb of Matariya. Both are areas typically associated with strong support for the Muslim Brotherhood. 

 Sisi and Coptic Pope Tawadros II led the funeral procession and the coffins were draped in the national flag.

Earlier, mourners had packed Cairo’s Virgin Mary and St Athanasius Church where Tawadros prayed over the wooden coffins. On the walls hung banners with the names of the dead, many of them women.

Tawadros sought to heal any sectarian friction caused by the attack, saying it “is not just a disaster for the church but a disaster for the whole nation”. He also condemned attacks against the security forces.

“Those who commit acts such as this do not belong to Egypt at all, even if they are on its land,” he said.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility for the Egyptian Coptic Church bombing in Cairo that claimed 25 lives on 11 December.