A car exploded in front of a church in Alexandria, killing 11 people and injuring 17. Security sources confirmed to Al-Masry Al-Youm having received 11 dead bodies from the site of the incident which happened in front of the St. Mark and St. Peter's Church in Sidi Bishr. Police cordoned the area of the attack. At the church site, Muslims and Christians started rioting. Eyewitnesses say that some Christians were attempting to burn a nearby mosque. Haytham Yehia, an eyewitness at the site of the bombings said that a group of Copts was chanting “we will protect the cross”, while a group of Muslims was shouting “God is Great.” He added that the sound of the bombing was so strong that it shook the nearby building where he lives. Sectarian violence erupted in Alexandria in April 2006 in the same area, following the death of Nushi Girgis, who was stabbed at the St. Mark and St. Peter's Church in Sidi Bishr, during a series of simultaneous attacks on three Alexandrian churches. The bombings took place after a number of radicals associated with al-Qaeda threatened to heighten attacks against Christians during the Christmas season. In its most recent threat, the Organization of the State of Iraq, a local branch of al-Qaeda, warned Iraqi Christians of more attacks if they do not pressure the Egyptian Christian Church to release a group of women who were allegedly detained by the church after converting to Islam.
