Al-Rawda mosque attack | |
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Part of the Sinai insurgency and Terrorism in Egypt | |
Location | Al-Rawda, Bir al-Abed, North Sinai Governorate, Egypt |
Coordinates | 31°2′22″N33°20′52″E / 31.03944°N 33.34778°E |
Date | 24 November 2017 1:50 PM EET (UTC+2) |
Target | al-Rawda mosque |
Attack type | Bombing, mass shooting |
Weapons | IEDs, rocket-propelled grenades and firearms |
Deaths | 311 [1] [2] |
Injured | at least 128 [3] |
Perpetrators | Islamic State |
Motive | Anti-Sufism [4] [5] |
At 1:50 PM EET on 24 November 2017, the al-Rawda mosque was attacked by roughly 40 gunmen during Friday prayers. The mosque is located in the village of Al-Rawda [6] east of the town of Bir al-Abed in Egypt's North Sinai Governorate. It is one of the main mosques associated with the Jaririya Sufi order, one of the largest Sufi orders in North Sinai. The Jaririya order is named for its founder, Sheikh Eid Abu Jarir, who was a member of the Sawarka tribe and the Jarira clan. The Jarira clan resides in the vicinity of Bir al-Abed. [7] [8] The attack killed 311 people and injured at least 128, making it the deadliest attack in Egyptian history. [2] It was the second-deadliest terrorist attack of 2017, after the Mogadishu bombings on 14 October. [9] The attack was universally condemned by many world leaders and organizations.
Al-Rawda Mosque, which is located on Sinai's main coastal highway connecting the city of Port Said to Gaza, belongs to the local Jarir clan, of the Sawarka tribe, who follow the Jaririya (Gaririya) Sufi order [10] [11] [12] [13] —an offshoot of the movement of Abu Ahmed al-Ghazawi, [14] [15] of the broader Darqawa order. [16] The mosque is on the road between El Arish and Bir al-Abed. [17] The mosque has a smaller zawiyah, a Sufi lodge, attached. [18]
According to local media, attackers in four off-road vehicles planted three bombs; the attackers used the burning wrecks of cars to block off escape routes. After their detonation, they launched rocket propelled grenades and opened fire on worshippers during the crowded Friday prayer at al-Rawda near Bir al-Abed. [11] When ambulances arrived to transport the wounded to hospitals, the attackers opened fire on them as well, having selected ambush points from which to target them. Local residents quickly responded, bringing the wounded to hospitals in their own cars and trucks, and even taking up weapons to fight back. [3] [19] [20]
311 people were killed in the attack, including 27 children, and at least 128 other people were wounded. [2] [7] [1] Many of the victims worked at a nearby salt factory and were at the mosque for Friday prayers. [21] [11]
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, [20] although there were reports that the attack appeared to be the work of Islamic State's Wilayat Sinai branch. [3] On 25 November, the Egyptian public prosecutor's office, citing interviews with survivors, said the attackers brandished the Islamic State flag. [22] [23]
Islamist militants have been active in the Sinai since July 2013, killing at least 1,000 Egyptian security forces personnel. [24] According to The New York Times , in January 2017 an interview of an insurgent commander in Sinai appeared in issue five of the Islamic State magazine Rumiyah , where the commander condemned Sufi practices and identified the district where the attack occurred as one of three areas where Sufis live in Sinai that Islamic State intended to "eradicate." [2] The community had been repeatedly threatened to refrain from Sufi practices. [25]
Jund al-Islam, an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group in Sinai who were formerly affiliated with ISIL, [26] declared their innocence and condemned the attack on the al-Rawda mosque. [27]
Egypt declared three days of national mourning following the attack. [28] Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said the attack "shall not go unpunished". [20] The President also ordered the government to allocate funds for compensating families of the dead. [29]
The Muslim Brotherhood wrote on Twitter and Facebook that it "condemns in the strongest words" the attack and that those responsible should "renounce extremism and violence". [30] [31] Al-Azhar University, Egypt's oldest accredited university, issued a statement condemning the attacks, adding "terrorism will be routed". [32] [33]
One week after the attack, Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, along with Grand Mufti Shawki Allam and Religious Endowments Minister Mokhtar Gomaa, performed Friday prayers at al-Rawda mosque. [34]
The attack was widely condemned by the international community, with many world leaders issuing official statements and social media posts. [20] Turkey declared one day of national mourning on 27 November. [35]
The Supreme Council for Sufi Orders cancelled street celebrations of Mawlid throughout Egypt as a sign of mourning. [36]
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights strongly condemned the attacks, [37] and weeks later issued a report that considered the massacre an attempt of genocide against the Sufi Muslim community of the Sinai Peninsula. [38] EOHR also called upon the Egyptian government to provide adequate protection for minorities.
A three-day opening of the border crossing into Gaza from Rafah, Egypt, scheduled for 25–27 November, was cancelled due to security concerns. [39] The Cairo International Film Festival stated in a press release its intention to continue with the festival, and condemned the attacks. [40]
The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality building, the Library of Birmingham, the Kuwait Towers and the CN Tower were illuminated with the colors of the Egyptian flag as a sign of solidarity. The lights of the Eiffel Tower were extinguished as well. [41] [42] The Royal Hashemite Court flew the Jordanian flag at half-mast. [43]
President el-Sisi vowed to respond with "the utmost force". In the days immediately after the attack the Air Force announced that it had pursued and destroyed some of the militants' vehicles and weapons stocks. [28] Airstrikes were also conducted in the neighboring mountains. [44]
In February 2018, Egypt responded to this attack with major air strikes and land assaults against terrorist positions in Sinai. [45]
North Sinai Governorate is one of the governorates of Egypt. It is located in the north-eastern part of the country, and encompasses the northern half of the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered in the north by the Mediterranean Sea, in the south by South Sinai Governorate, in the west by Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez Governorates, and in the east by the Gaza Strip in Palestine and Israel. Its capital is the city of El Arish. A governorate is administered by a governor, who is appointed by the President of Egypt and serves at the president's discretion.
ʻArish or el-ʻArīsh is the capital and largest city of the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt, as well as the largest city on the Sinai Peninsula, lying on the Mediterranean coast 344 kilometres (214 mi) northeast of Cairo and 45 kilometres (28 mi) west of the Egypt–Gaza border.
Takfiri is an Arabic and Islamic term denoting a Muslim who excommunicates one of his/her coreligionists, i.e. who accuses another Muslim of being an apostate.
Terrorism in Egypt in the 20th and 21st centuries has targeted the Egyptian government officials, Egyptian police and Egyptian army members, tourists, Sufi Mosques and the Christian minority. Many attacks have been linked to Islamic extremism, and terrorism increased in the 1990s when the Islamist movement al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya targeted high-level political leaders and killed hundreds – including civilians – in its pursuit of implementing traditional Sharia law in Egypt.
The September 11 attacks were condemned by world leaders and other political and religious representatives and the international media, as well as numerous memorials and services all over the world. The attacks were widely condemned by the governments of the world, including those traditionally considered hostile to the United States, such as Cuba, Iran, Libya, and North Korea. However, in a few cases celebrations of the attacks were also reported, and some groups and individuals accused the United States in effect of bringing the attacks on itself. These reports have been uncorroborated and many have been linked to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.
The Sinai insurgency was an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, launched by Islamist militants against Egyptian security forces, which have also included attacks on civilians. The insurgency began during the Egyptian Crisis, during which the longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
Since the classical era, two major scholarly factions have been influential within Islamic societies: Sufism-Ash'arism-Maturidi and Salafism-Atharism. The dispute between these two schools of thought dominated the Sunni world, splitting their influence across religious communities and cultures, with each school competing for scholarly authority via official and unofficial religious institutions. The relationship between Salafism and Sufism – two movements of Islam with different interpretations of Islam – is historically diverse and reflects some of the changes and conflicts in the Muslim world today.
On 24 October 2014, ISIL militants launched two attacks on Egyptian army positions in the Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 33 security personnel. This was one of the deadliest assaults on the Egyptian military in decades.
The Qatif and Dammam mosque bombings occurred on 22 and 29 May 2015. On Friday May 22, a suicide bomber attacked the Shia "Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque" situated in Qudeih village of Qatif city in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed at least 21 people. The event is the second deadly attack against Shia in six months.
The Islamic State – Sinai Province is a branch of the terrorist Islamist group Islamic State that is active in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.
In July 2013, at the same time as mass protests began against the 3 July coup d'état which deposed Mohamed Morsi, and in parallel with the escalation of the already ongoing jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, pro-Muslim Brotherhood militants started violent attacks against policemen and soldiers in central and western Egypt. In the following months, new Islamist armed groups were created to reinstate Islamist rule in Egypt, like Soldiers of Egypt and the Popular Resistance Movement. Since 2013, violence in mainland Egypt has escalated and developed into a low-level Islamist insurgency against the Egyptian government.
Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, or AQSP, is an Egyptian militant jihadist organization possibly formed by a merger between al-Qaeda operatives in Sinai and Ansar al Jihad. It was Al-Qaeda's branch in the Sinai peninsula, and is composed of many Al-Qaeda factions in the area. AQSP made international headlines in November 2014 when the organization pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in a nine-minute audio speech released on Twitter.
Persecution of Sufis over the course of centuries has included acts of religious discrimination, persecution, and violence both by Sunni and Shia Muslims, such as destruction of Sufi shrines, tombs and mosques, suppression of Sufi orders, murder, and terrorism against adherents of Sufism in a number of Muslim-majority countries. The Republic of Turkey banned all Sufi orders and abolished their institutions in 1925, after Sufis opposed the new secular order. The Islamic Republic of Iran has harassed Sufis, reportedly for their lack of support for the government doctrine of "governance of the jurist".
The October 2016 Sinai attacks was a terrorist attack on an Egyptian army checkpoint in the city of Bir al-Abed, Egypt, on 14 October 2016. A group of militants armed with assault rifles and heavier weapons attacked an Egyptian army checkpoint while mortar rounds and rockets were fired directed to a military checkpoint. In response, the Egyptian military forces killed around 15 militants following the attack. The Islamic State's Wilayat Sinai branch claimed responsibility in a statement released later the same day.
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Bir al-Abed is one of the cities of North Sinai in the north east of Egypt. It is the capital of Bir al-Abd Markaz, located on the international coastal road on the shores of Lake Bardawil.
Eid Abu Jarir was a Sufi shaykh who founded the eponymous Jaririya Sufi order in Sinai, Egypt. Alongside his teacher Abu Ahmed al-Ghazawi, who founded the Alawi-Ahmadi tariqah, he is considered one of the founders of Sufism in the Sinai Peninsula. He was a member of the Jarir clan of the al-Sawarka tribe. The main three Sufi lodges he established, starting in the winter of 1953-1954, are the Sa’ud lodge in Sharqia, the Arab lodge in Ismailia, and the Rawdah lodge in North Sinai, the last of which was attacked in the 2017 Sinai mosque attack. He was part of the Sinai Mujahideen, which fought against Israel alongside the Egyptian military in the 1967 to 1970 War of Attrition. He was driven out of North Sinai in the 1960s, and lived the rest of his life and has his tomb in Sa'ed, El Husseiniya, near Cairo. Under law number 118 for the year 1976, his Jariri order is officially registered by the Egyptian government.
Jaririya is a Sufi order, one of the largest Sufi orders in North Sinai. The Jaririya order is named for its founder, Sheikh Eid Abu Jarir, who was a member of the Sawarka tribe and the Jarira clan, and established the order in Sinai in the 1940s. The Jarira clan resides in the vicinity of Bir al-Abed.
Al-Rawda is a village in the markaz of Bir al-Abed, in the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt. It is a center of the Jaririya Sufi order, with the majority of the population following it, and of the Sawarka tribe. The Al-Rawda mosque and its zawiya was established in the winter of 1953-1954 by Eid Abu Jarir, and it was expanded and a minaret added in about 1990.
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Gunmen fired on people fleeing after explosions took place at the mosque between Bir al-Abed and the city of al-Arish.