Egypt mourns 305 victims of Sinai mosque attack

CAIRO: Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to respond forcefully after attackers martyred at least 305 worshippers in a packed mosque in restive North Sinai province, the country´s deadliest attack in recent memory.

Al-Sisi declared three days of mourning would begin Saturday, the day after the gun and bomb assault on the Rawda mosque, roughly 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish.

In a televised speech the president pledged to "respond with brutal force", adding that "the army and police will avenge our martyrs and return security and stability with force in the coming short period".

Several hours later Egyptian air force jets destroyed vehicles used in the attack and "terrorist" locations where weapons and ammunition were stocked, an army spokesman said.

Witnesses said assailants had surrounded the mosque with all-terrain vehicles and detonated a bomb. They then mowed down panicked worshippers as they tried to flee and used congregants´ vehicles they had set alight to block routes to the mosque.

The state prosecutor´s office said in a statement that 305 people were martyred and 128 wounded in the assault on the mosque roughly 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish.

AFP photographs of the scene indicated that children were among the dead.

World leaders condemned the attack. US President Donald Trump condemned on Twitter the "horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenceless worshippers".

The grand imam of Cairo´s Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, condemned "in the strongest terms this barbaric terrorist attack".

Daesh targeting of Sufis

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bloodshed.

The Daesh group´s Egypt branch has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, and also civilians accused of working with the authorities, in attacks in the north of the Sinai peninsula.

A tribal leader and head of a Bedouin militia that fights Daesh told AFP that the mosque is known as a place where Sufis gather.

The Daesh group shares the puritan Salafi view that Sufis are heretics for seeking the intercession of saints.

The militants had previously kidnapped and beheaded an elderly Sufi leader, accusing him of practising magic, and abducted Sufi practitioners later released after "repenting".

The group has killed more than 100 Christians in church bombings and shootings in Sinai and other parts of Egypt, forcing many to flee the peninsula.

The military has struggled to quell militants who pledged allegiance to Daesh in November 2014.

Mosque attack death toll in Egypt rises to 235

Victims included civilians and conscripts praying at the mosque

The militants have since increasingly turned to civilian targets, attacking not only Christians and Sufis but also Bedouin Sinai inhabitants accused of working with the army.

The Gaza Strip´s border crossing with Egypt that had been due to reopen Saturday will remain closed until further notice because of the attack, a Palestinian official said.

Aside from Daesh, Egypt also faces a threat from Al-Qaeda-aligned militants who operate out of neighbouring Libya.

A group calling itself Ansar al-Islam -- Supporters of Islam in Arabic -- claimed an October ambush in Egypt´s Western Desert that killed at least 16 policemen.

Many of those killed belonged to the interior ministry´s secretive National Security Service.

The military later conducted air strikes on the attackers, killing their leader Emad al-Din Abdel Hamid, a most wanted militant who was a military officer before joining an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Libya´s militant stronghold of Derna.