Egypt: Cleric blames Israeli and US intelligence for Church bombing

Cairo, 3 Jan. (AKI) - US and Israeli intelligence were behind the deadly bombing of a church in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria early on Saturday, an Egyptian cleric kidnapped by CIA and Italian secret service agents in the northern Italian city of Milan in 2003, told Adnkronos International (AKI).

"Israel's Mossad and the CIA are behind the attack in Alexandria," Osama Hasan Mustafa Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, told AKI.

No one has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing which killed 21 people and injured dozens outside a Coptic church in Alexandria, but suspicion is likely to fall on Al-Qaeda linked or inspired Islamist radicals, according to analysts.

"After the (31 October) attack against the church in Baghdad, it is Egypt's turn," Nasr said, referring to the terrorist assault on a Catholic church in which 58 people including two priests died and a further 80 were injured.

The Egyptian government earlier boosted security outside churches after the Islamic State of Iraq issued a threat in late October against Copts, who form 10 percent of Egypt's population.

US and Israeli secret services have spent millions of dollars sowing deep divisions between Muslims and Christians in Egypt to destabilise the country, according to Nasr.

"That is why I and others think that the US and Israel are behind the attack in Alexandria," he said, adding that he condemned the attack.

"No Muslim can condone such an act," he stated. "It has nothing to do with the Egyptian people and Muslims."

Egyptian authorities are reported to have stepped up security around all minority Christian churches since Saturday's attack, but hundreds of Copts have demonstrated in Alexandria - Egypt's second city - and clashed with police for the past two days to protest the bombing.

In a landmark ruling in 2009, an Italian court jailed 23 CIA agents in absentia and two Italian agents over Nasr's abduction in broad daylight from a Milan street in February 2003.

Nasr alleges he was flown to Egypt and tortured in prison there. He was released in 2007 and now lives in Alessandria. He is suspected of recruiting Muslim fighters to train in Afghanistan and said he will set up an Islamist party with any legal damages he is awarded.

Nasr and his wife are seeking 15 million euros in compensation for his ordeal.

He could still face arrest if he returns to Italy.