CAIRO: Egypt’s Parliament on Tuesday unanimously approved a three-month state of emergency declared by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi after deadly church bombings, state-run Nile News television reported.
The measure was published in Egypt’s official gazette on Monday and said to have come into effect at 1:00 p.m. (1100 GMT) the same day, after 45 Coptic Christians were killed in Sunday’s twin bombings.
The Daesh group said it was behind the bombings at churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria, and threatened further attacks against Egypt’s Christian minority.
Prime Minister Sherif Ismail told lawmakers before the vote in a televised speech that the measure was needed to empower the state to take necessary measures against proponents of violence.
Sunday’s first bombing at the Mar Girgis church in Tanta, north of Cairo, killed 28 people. The second struck outside Saint Mark’s church in Alexandria, killing 17 people after a suicide bomber was prevented from entering the building.
The violence comes ahead of Catholic Pope Francis’ first trip to Egypt, which a Vatican official said will proceed as planned on April 28 and 29 despite the attacks.
The presidency said on Tuesday that the Supreme Council to Combat Terrorism and Extremism, announced by El-Sisi on Sunday, would put together a strategy to fight terrorism.
The council comprising government officials would be supported by committees of public figures and experts in various fields, the presidency said in a statement.
The committees would monitor “terrorist organizations” as well as “propose security and legal mechanisms to confront them,” it said.
Following Sunday’s attacks, mourners criticized security measures at churches, asking how could a bomb have been allowed to enter and pass through metal detectors at the gates, especially as Daesh has threatened their community.
Copts, who make up about one tenth of Egypt’s population of more than 92 million, have been targeted several times in recent months.
Militants groups such as Daesh, and extremists accuse Copts of supporting the military overthrow of President Muhammad Mursi in 2013, which ushered in a deadly crackdown on his supporters.
Egypt Parliament approves state of emergency
Egypt Parliament approves state of emergency
Over 2,200 Daesh detainees transferred to Iraq from Syria: Iraqi official
- Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the terrorists
BAGHDAD: Iraq has so far received 2,225 Daesh group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.
They are among up to 7,000 Daesh detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at “ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities.”
Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.
The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF’s role in confronting Daesh had come to an end.
Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister’s office, told AFP on Saturday that “Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition,” which Washington has led since 2014 to fight Daesh.
He said they are being held in “strict, regular detention centers.”
A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the “continued transfer of Daesh detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition,” using another name for Daesh.
On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.
- Iraq calls for repatriation -
Daesh seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.
Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the terrorists.
In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offenses.
Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.
On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military’s operation.
In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said “the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist Daesh organization before the competent Iraqi courts.”
Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.
Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.
Maan noted that “the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed.”
