DM, “ISIS has claimed responsibility for recent deadly attacks on churches in Egypt”, 26 May 2016:

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Egyptian planes bomb Libyan jihadi training camps after at least 28 people, including children, were killed when masked gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians.

- Ten masked gunmen opened fire on buses carrying Coptic Christians in Egypt

- At least 28 killed and more injured when attackers sprayed bullets at the convoy

- Worshipers were heading to St Samuel Monastery to pray when gunmen struck

- Egyptian bombers have hit ‘terror training camps’ in Libya in retaliation

- President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi vowed Egypt will fight back against attacks

- He also called for Donald Trump to take the lead in the fight against terror

Egyptian forces have struck bases in which militants who waged a deadly attack against Christians have been trained.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said fighter jets struck militant bases in eastern Libya in retaliation for an attack by suspected Islamic State militants that killed 28 Christians and wounded another 22 south of Cairo.

[...]

Up to 10 masked attackers dressed in military uniforms stopped a convoy in Egypt province, 140 miles south of Cairo, as the group was heading towards Saint Samuel the Confessor Monastery in Maghagha to pray.

The gunmen, who arrived in three four-wheel drive vehicles, used automatic weapons to spray bullets at the convoy before fleeing. A health ministry official said a ‘large number’ of victims were children.

[...]

Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group also condemned the attack, saying ‘it is a new crime added to the criminal record of a murderers’ gang’.

Egypt has been fighting ISIS militants who have waged an insurgency, mainly focused in the volatile north of the Sinai Peninsula but there have been also attacks on the mainland.

The country has seen a wave of attacks on its Christians, including twin suicide bombings in April and another attack in December on a Cairo church that left over 75 people dead and scores wounded. ISIS in Egypt claimed responsibility for them and vowed more attacks.

[...]

Egypt’s Copts, the Middle East’s largest Christian community, have repeatedly complained of suffering discrimination, as well as outright attacks, at hands of the country’s majority Muslim population.

Over the past decades, they have been the immediate targets of Islamic extremists.

They rallied behind general-turned-president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, in 2013 when he ousted his Islamist predecessor Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood group.

Attacks on Christian homes, businesses and churches subsequently surged, especially in the country’s south.