Via IBT:
Isis fighters in Egypt have been circulating kill lists of Christians, leading to brutal attacks members of the minority faith and causing a mass exodus from the Sinai Peninsula.
Reuters reports that over the past month seven Christians in the town of Al-Arish have been burned, beheaded and shot dead because of their faith. One family described how their father had acid sprayed in his face as he tried to defend his land from the neighbours.
Following the wave of bloodshed since the beginning of January, 175 families from Egypt’s Christian Coptic minority have fled from the Sinai to the industrial city of Ismalia and Cairo to avoid the sectarian violence.
Islamic State’s affiliate in Egypt has been waging a ground war against government in the lawless Sinai for over two years with a virtual media blackout on the insurgency. Regular attacks in Al-Arish have become a perennial problem for the military government of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and one of the indicators of his failing rule.
However, the shift in Islamic State tactics away from attacking government buildings and police checkpoints has marked a sea change in how the terror group operates. Analysts have said the new strategy aims to ferment sectarian hatred of the kind that benefited Isis in Iraq and Syria. Such violence, if it was exported beyond the Sinai, would act to further destabilise military rule in Cairo.
Copts comprise about 10% of Egypt’s 90 million people making them the largest Christian minority in the Middle East.