Egyptian attorney general opens investigation of former Interior Minister

Egyptian attorney general Abd al-Majid Mahmud has opened an investigation to determine whether the former Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adly was involved in the terrorist attacks Copts that took place in Alexandria last New Year's Eve. This was reported by the moderate Arabian news broadcaster al Arabiya in Dubai. Reports from British diplomats and secret service staff are said to have fostered doubts concerning the official Egyptian version of events. In the attacks on Saint Mark's Cathedral, 24 Copts were killed and 170 people wounded.

"If this outrageous suspicion is substantiated, it would put the Mubarak regime in an even worse light," said the head of the Africa section the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), Ulrich Delius. Witnesses of the bloodbath had expressed their concern to the STP over the fact that, in spite of threats of violence, all security forces except four police officers and one supervisor had been withdrawn immediately prior to the attack on the church, which held 2000 worshippers at the time.

The Egyptian Interior Minister offered several different versions of events and with surprising rapidity blamed foreign members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network for the bloodbath. Later the government was forced to admit that the attacks were carried out by Egyptians. Cairo placed responsibility for planning the attack on the Gaza based "Army of Islam," who denied any involvement.

According to Egyptian attorney Ramzi Mamdouh, British diplomats reported that the Egyptian Interior Minister had built up a special commando of 22 operators over the past 6 years, including radical Islamists. Their task was to carry out attacks throughout the land so that the Mubarak regime could present itself as saving the country from Islamists.

British secret service agents are said to have reported that on 11 December 2010 Interior Ministry employee Major Fathi Abdelwahid directed Ahmed Mohamed Khaled, who had been in Egyptian prison for 11 years, to establish contact with the radical group Jundullah. This group was told to prepare an attack on the cathedral in Alexandria. Khaled allegedly told the group that he had procured weapons in Gaza to "discipline the Copts." According to the British report, a member of Jundullah drove explosive-laden vehicle up to the church where, contrary to the prior agreement, the Major ignited the explosives while the attackers were still in the vehicle. Later, the report continued, Khaled met with Jundullah militants in an apartment rented by the conspirators in Alexandria to evaluate the attack. Several days later, the Jundullah activists were arrested and taken to the Interior Ministry. As public order fell apart, they allegedly fled on January 28 and sought asylum at the British embassy.

"The allegations sound incredible, but are reminiscent of similar commando actions by the Algerian secret service, which in 1996 kidnapped seven French monks, who were later killed," said Delius. "Moreover, secret service agents carried out many terrorist attacks which the government in Algiers wrongly blamed on radical Islamists."