As diplomatic crisis hits the Gulf, Kuwait urges Qatar to calm tensions with allies and refrain from escalating dispute.

GCC countries Kuwait and Oman have not severed ties with Qatar [AFP]

by Al Jazeera

Kuwait’s ruler will travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks with King Salman over a Gulf Arab dispute with Qatar, Gulf Arab officials said.

Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, is acting as a mediator between Doha and other Arab states which have severed diplomatic and transport ties with Doha.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut diplomatic relations with Qatar on Monday in a coordinated move, accusing the peninsula of supporting “terrorists” and Iran.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government also cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of working with its enemies in the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, state news agency Saba reported.

The Maldives and Libya’s out-of-mandate Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni later joined the Arab nations in saying they too would cut ties.

Sanctions include shutting down transport links, including closing borders, airspace and maritime territories, which led to fears of supply shortages.

In an interview on Monday with Al Jazeera, Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Kuwait’s ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, had asked Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar’s ruling emir, to hold off on giving a speech about the crisis late on Tuesday night.

“He received a call from the emir of Kuwait asking him to postpone it in order to give time to solve the crisis,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

Sheikh Sabah called on Qatar’s ruler to focus on easing tension and advised against making decisions that could escalate the situation, Kuwait state news agency Kuna said.

Still, the Qatari foreign minister struck a defiant tone, saying his nation rejected those trying to impose their will or intervene in its internal affairs.

Kuwait, Oman ‘fear escalation’

Analyst Giorgio Cafiero of Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera: “I think the Kuwaitis as well as Omanis … fear the prospects of these tensions escalating in ways which could undermine the interest of all six members of the GCC.

“There are many analysts who believe that a potential break-up of the GCC has to be considered right now.”

He added that if tension escalates, some have warned of a “military confrontation”.

“If these countries fail to resolve their issues and such tensions reaches new heights, we have to be very open to the possibility of these six Arab countries no longer being able to unite under the banner of one council,” said Cafiero.

The dispute between Qatar and the Arab countries escalated after a recent hack of Qatar’s state-run news agency. It has spiralled since.

As it cut ties on Monday, Saudi Arabia charged that Qatar was embracing “various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilising the region,” including the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and armed groups supported by Iran in the kingdom’s restive east.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry accused Qatar of taking an “antagonist approach” towards Cairo and said “all attempts to stop it from supporting terrorist groups failed”.

Qatar denied the allegations, with a Foreign Ministry statement describing them as “baseless” on Monday.

The group issuing sanctions on Doha “is clearly the imposition of guardianship over Qatar, which is in itself a violation of its sovereignty, and is rejected outright,” the statement said.

The move came just two weeks after US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and vowed to improve ties with both Riyadh and Cairo to combat “terrorism” and contain Iran.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the move was rooted in long-standing differences and urged the parties to resolve them.

“It is true that the current US administration is adopting to have a bit more Saudi position distant from Qatari position,” Richard Weitz, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute, told Al Jazeera

“But I still think that the US military contacts can play a good role to help resolve, perhaps, some of the difference, since US military particular want an end to this dispute because of the difficulties to find a space and terrorism cooperation and so on.”

The Gulf countries ordered their citizens out of Qatar and gave Qataris abroad 14 days to return home to their peninsular nation, whose only land border is with Saudi Arabia. The countries also said they would eject Qatar’s diplomats.

The nations also said they planned to cut air and sea traffic. Trucks carrying food had begun lining up on the Saudi side of the border, apparently stranded. The Qatar Stock Exchange fell more than seven percent in trading Monday.

Qatar Airways, one of the region’s major long-haul carriers, has suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain until further notice.

On its website, the carrier said the suspension of its flights would take effect Tuesday and customers are being offered a refund.

The route between Doha and Dubai is popular among business travellers and both are major transit hubs for travellers between Asia and Europe.

Abu Dhabi:  Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways has said that it would suspend flights to Qatar after the United Arab Emirates was among major Gulf states to sever ties with Doha in an unprecedented regional crisis, said a report from AFP on Monday.

Etihad said flights would stop on Tuesday, after the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain said they would cut all air, land and sea links with Qatar within 24 hours.

Etihad, which operates four return flights to Doha daily, said the measure will be in place “until further notice”.

Other carriers from the three Gulf countries, including Dubai’s Emirates, are likely to announce similar measures.

The unprecedented measures against Doha include ordering Qatari citizens to leave within 14 days and banning citizens of the three Gulf states from travelling to Qatar.

Doha airport, along with airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, have become major hubs after Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways seized a significant chunk of transcontinental travel on routes linking Western countries with Asia and Australasia.

(Agencies)

The Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (Credit: Reuters)

Cairo: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terror groups including the Muslim Brotherhood and interfering in its internal affairs.

“Qatar’s policy threatens Arab national security and sows the seeds of strife and division within Arab societies according to a deliberate plan aimed at the unity and interests of the Arab nation,” Al Ahram news quoted an Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement as saying.

The four countries announced they would withdraw their diplomatic staff from Qatar, and also the closure of its airspace and borders severing land, sea and air contact within the next 24 hours.

According to Saudi state news agency SPA, authorities announced that Qatari troops would be pulled from the ongoing war in Yemen due to Doha’s “practices that strengthen terrorism” and its support to groups “including Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as dealing with the rebel militias”, reports the BBC.

In an official statement, Bahrain said Qatar has interfered with its internal affairs, engaged in negative media coverage against it, and supported terrorist activities and armed groups, as well as financed Iranian-backed groups that are responsible of vandalism and violence in the country, reports Xinhua news agency.

The country has asked Qatari diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours.

The UAE has also accused Qatar of “supporting, funding and embracing terrorism, extremism and sectarian organisations”, according to state news agency WAM.

Monday’s move comes after Qatar alleged that hackers last month took over the site of its state-run news agency and published what it called fake comments from its ruling emir about Iran and Israel, Al Ahram reported.

Its Gulf Arab neighbours responded with anger, blocking Qatari-based media, including the Doha-based satellite news network Al Jazeera.

In March 2014, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain had recalled their ambassadors from Qatar its alleged backing of then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member.

However, eight months later they returned their ambassadors as Qatar forced some Brotherhood members to leave the country and quieted others.

(Agencies)

US military reports 484 civilian deaths by US-led coalition strikes, but outside monitors put the number much higher.

Nearly 200,000 civilians are caught in an area of about eight-square kilometres in Mosul [Karim Sahib/AFP]

by Al Jazeera

The US military said that coalition attacks on ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq have killed more than 480 civilians since mid-2014 – a tally that is far below those of outside monitors.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Friday that it added an additional 132 civilians deaths to its April report, a sharp increase from 352 it previously reported in late April.

However, that total, which only includes civilian deaths through April, was still far short of what non-governmental organisations and monitors have estimated.

Airwars, a London-based collective of journalists and researchers that tracks civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq, estimated more than 3,800 non-combatants have been killed since the US-led coalition’s operations began in August 2014.

Mosul offensive

CENTCOM’s estimate includes 105 civilians killed in a US-led air raid in March against a building in the Iraqi city of Mosul, the single deadliest incident for civilians arising from a coalition strike since anti-ISIL operations began in Iraq and Syria nearly three years ago.

Separately, Al Jazeera’s sources recently said more than 120 civilians were killed in less than a week as Iraqi forces – backed by coalition air power – move to take the remaining pockets of territory held by ISIL in Mosul.

In a statement emailed to Al Jazeera earlier on Friday by the Operation Inherent Resolve press office, the coalition said it “is aware of allegations of civilian casualties”.

It added that the “coalition and Iraqi security forces are making every attempt to safeguard civilians as they liberate the city from ISIS terrorists who are using snipers to target civilians trying to flee the city … The coalition takes all allegations of civilian casualties serious and will assess the allegations”.

The battle to recapture the last stronghold of ISIL in Iraq has now entered its eighth month.

Iraqi government forces, backed by US advisers, artillery and air support, have cleared the east and most of western Mosul and are now focused on controlling the Old City with Iraqi civilians paying a heavy price.

“We moved out and got frightened by heavy air strikes,” one civilian who escaped the fighting in western Mosul told Al Jazeera. “We fled after our house was destroyed by mortar shelling.”

The close-quarter fighting has intensified with reports that ISIL fighters have gathered at the historic al-Nuri Mosque – a centuries-old structure famous for its leaning minaret – to make a last stand as Iraqi forces encircle the armed group in its de facto capital after capturing the city in 2014.

Nearly 200,000 civilians are caught in an area of about eight-square kilometres.

Al Jazeera’s Osama bin Javaid, reporting from Erbil, just east of Mosul, said observers are pushing the Iraqi military and the US-led coalition to take care of civilians, despite the intensity of combat against ISIL.

“Saving people is proving to be easier said than done,” Javaid said. “Aid workers and rights groups have been repeating their concerns that in the process to push ISIL out, Iraqi forces must make sure that civilians are not caught in the crossfire.”

Dozens of women and children killed while trying to escape west Mosul, as Iraqi army seeks to close in on ISIL fighters.

by Al Jazeera

More than 140 civilians have been killed in less than a week while trying to flee western Mosul, according to military sources, as the Iraqi army seeks to close in on ISIL fighters in the armed group’s last stronghold in Iraq.

According to the military on Thursday, most of the fatalities were women and children.

More than seven months into a massive US-backed operation to retake Iraq’s second city, security forces have recaptured all but a handful of areas of Mosul from ISIL.

Yet, hundreds of thousands of civilians may be trapped in those still held by the group, which seized Mosul in the summer of 2014.

Six days into a new assault on ISIL’s remaining pockets of territory, the Iraqi army and their allies have progressed slower than what they expected, Al Jazeera’s Osama bin Javaid, reporting from Erbil in northern Iraq, said.

“They are facing fierce resistance from ISIL fighters,” he said, adding that the civilian death toll had risen to 140 as of 1300 GMT on Thursday, amid the heavy clashes.

“It has just become more gruesome,” he said. “It’s becoming a tough fight. Iraqi forces are trying to hit ISIL targets shielding behind civilian homes, among densely populated areas.”

“Seventy civilians were reported to have died due to an air strike on Tuesday. It was not clear if it was Iraqi army or coalition forces who conducted the air strike.”

Our correspondent also reported that ISIL fighters are using mobile mortar squad backed by snipers and suicide car bombs.

“It is a complicated battlefield that Iraqi forces are trying to navigate, and the highest price being paid is by the civilians of Mosul,” he said.

750,000 displaced

Most of the civilians are in the Old City which lies immediately south of where the current fighting is taking place.

The area, a warren of narrow streets and closely-spaced buildings, has posed a major challenge for security forces, and the coming battle to retake it poses a major threat to civilians.

“There are densely populated neighbourhoods,” Javaid said.

“Streets upon streets of people who are living in the besieged areas of Mosul. Around 200,000 people live there and ISIL uses them as human shields.”

More than 750,000 people have been displaced since the start of the Mosul operation in October, according to the UN, and that figure could increase sharply in the final stages of the battle for the city.

Around 150,000 of the displaced have since returned to their homes.

The Mosul offensive has taken much longer than expected, with Iraqi government advances slowed by the need to avoid civilian casualties.

The fall of the city would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the ”caliphate” declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria by ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in speech from a landmark mosque in Mosul’s old city.

In Syria, Kurdish forces backed by US air raids are besieging ISIL forces in the city of Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in that country.

Two attacks in the space of 12 hours roil Iraqi capital, with ISIL claim of first explosion at a busy ice cream parlour.

In the second blast near Al-Shahada Bridge, 11 people were killed [Khalid al-Mousily/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Two blasts ripped through the Iraqi capital of Baghdad just days into the holy month of Ramadan, killing at least 27 people and wounding more than 100.

ISIL claimed the first and deadliest suicide car bomb attack, which took place shortly after midnight at a busy ice cream parlour in Karrada, killing at least 16 people and injuring at least 75 – with children among the victims.

Scenes of panic and carnage followed the explosion in the Shia district, where last July ISIL bombed close to 300 people to death in the worst attack in 13 years of war.

ISIL considers members of Iraq’s Shia Muslim majority to be heretics and frequently carries out attacks against them.

A number of wounded lay on the ground, others propped themselves up on the colourful park benches outside the ice cream shop.

One young girl, wearing a ribbon and bow in her hair, wandered the scene dazed.

During Ramadan, people stay up late and many eat out to prepare for the fast the next day.

“Families were out and the place was crowded,” Hayder al-Khoei, a London-based Middle East expert, told Al Jazeera.

Al-Khoei explained that the armed group “timed Tuesday’s attack to cause maximum impact”.

“The suicide bomber detonated himself just after midnight. It was a hot day and he targeted a popular ice cream parlour in Baghdad,” he said.

Second explosion

A second deadly explosion struck the Al-Shahada Bridge area later in the morning, killing at least 11 people and wounding 41, according to security sources and witnesses.

A car bomb there exploded near the country’s main pension office close to the River Tigris.

Ibrahim al-Zararee, writing on Twitter, said he was close to both attacks.

“I was near the site of the explosion [in Karrada a] few hours before it happened and it was full of life. Now it’s full of death and horror,” he said. “Today I was few seconds away from [the blast Al-Shahada Bridge]. The explosion today was near the General Retirement Department. A walking distance from the famous Mutanabi Street.”

Video posted to social media showed plumes of black smoke rising from a building.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the second bombing, though it also bore the hallmarks of ISIL.

Brett McGurk, US special envoy to the anti-ISIL coalition, tweeted after the first attack: “ISIS terrorists tonight in Baghdad target children and families enjoying time together at an ice cream shop. We stand with Iraq against this evil.”

ISIL in focus

The attacks in Baghdad come as Iraqi forces fight to retake the last ISIL-held areas of Mosul, a city that was the group’s most emblematic stronghold.

Iraqi commanders say the offensive, which recently entered its eighth month, will mark the end of ISIL in Iraq, but concede the group will likely increase attacks in the wake of military defeats.

Michael Pregent, former US army officer and Iraqi government adviser with the Hudson Institute think tank, told Al Jazeera: “[Tuesday’s attack is] meant to stoke a sectarian flame to get some sort of response from Shia militias from the government. It’s also meant to discredit the Baghdad government.

“That’s something that Shia militias, recently criticised by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, can also use to criticise the current government ahead of the 2018 elections.”

Three neighbourhoods north of Mosul’s Old City – Al-Shifaa, Al-Saha and Al-Zinjili – are now the target of a broad assault by Iraqi soldiers, police and special forces that was launched last week.

On Tuesday, an Iraqi army officer said that security forces were proceeding slowly in Al-Shifaa in a bid to protect infrastructure.

“Attacks like this demonstrate ISIL’s desperation,” Iraqi analyst Ali Hadi Al-Musawi told Al Jazeera. “They’re being thoroughly routed on the battlefield, they’re no longer able to function as a proto-state in Iraq, so they have to resort to attacking soft targets at an ice cream parlor in order to maintain some sort of perverse relevance.”

Deadly air strikes continue to target Raqqa city, monitoring group says, as thousands continue to flee the fighting.

The UN says at least 23,544 people have been displaced from May 18-22 due to the fighting in Raqqa [Rodi Said/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

At least 13 people have been killed in suspected US-led coalition air strikes on the ISIL-held city of Raqqa and suspected rocket attacks fired by a Kurdish group fighting ISIL, a monitoring group has said.

Some of the deaths in the northern city on Sunday evening resulted from air strikes blamed on the US-led coalition, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.

The death toll also included civilians killed in rocket attacks by the Ghadab al-Furat group (dubbed Wrath of the Euphrates) on Sunday, the Observatory said.

Ghadab al-Furat is a Kurdish group fighting under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). They launched a campaign in October 2016 to retake Raqqa, the de facto capital of the ISIL in northern Syria.

The SDF, which includes the powerful Kurdish YPG armed group, said last week it plans to launch the final assault on Raqqa city in early summer.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a press release on Sunday that it conducted 17 air strikes targeting ISIL in Syria, destroying two ISIL bases in Deir Az Zor and three ISIL headquarters near Raqqa.

It did not mention civilian casualties in its report.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, an activist group in Raqqa, said on Sunday that a school was targeted by the US-led coalition in Mansoura west of Raqqa city.

The school was destroyed in the attack, the group said.

The activists said on Thursday that Raqqa city was targeted with at least 30 coalition air strikes, and 80 rocket attacks by the SDF killing at least 35 civilians in the past 24 hours.

The SDF has been encircling Raqqa since November.

Earlier this month, its fighters captured Tabqa, a previously ISIL-held town some 50km west of Raqqa, and a strategic dam nearby.

The UN said in a report that on May 14, at least 23 farm workers, including 17 women, were reportedly killed when air strikes hit al-Akershi village in a rural area of eastern Raqqa province.

Other air strikes on two residential areas of the ISIL-controlled city of Abo Kamal in eastern Deir Az Zor province the following day (May 15), reportedly killed at least 59 civilians (including 16 children and 12 women) and injured another 70.

The day after that, ISIL fighters are said to have cut the throats of eight men at the sites of the air strikes, after accusing them of providing coordinates for the strikes.

Earlier in May, the Observatory reported the highest monthly civilian death toll for the coalition’s campaign in Syria.

Between April 23 and May 23 2017, coalition air strikes killed at least 225 civilians in Syria, including dozens of children.

The US military had said coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria had “unintentionally” killed a total of 352 civilians since 2014.

At least 23,544 civilians have been displaced between May 18-22, the UN said in a press release last week.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al- Hussein last week urged all states’ air forces operating in the country to take much greater care to distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians.

“The same civilians who are suffering indiscriminate shelling and summary executions by ISIL, are also falling victim to the escalating air strikes, particularly in the northeastern governorates of Raqqa and Deir Az Zor,” Zeid said.

Aid agencies say some 17 million people do not have enough to eat [Al Jazeera]

by Al Jazeera

While Muslims worldwide celebrate Ramadan with special meals and tasty treats, millions of Yemenis are suffering from an acute lack of food as the country’s two-year war rages on.

According to aid agencies, 17 million people do not have enough to eat, in what the UN calls the “largest humanitarian crisis in the world”.

Typically, people shop throughout Ramadan, but Yemeni storekeepers have nothing to celebrate.

“Sales are the lowest from years past. Every year is worse than before,” Yahya Hubar, a shopkeeper in Hodeidah, a coastal city in western Yemen, told Al Jazeera.

More than two million children are acutely malnourished in Yemen, where a child under five dies every 10 minutes of preventable diseases, according a report by UNICEF published in December.

In addition, the country is facing a cholera outbreak, which so far has infected more than 29,000 people.

As many are scrambling to get their hands on food necessities, no longer are people talking about the special foods prepared and enjoyed during the festive Ramadan month.

“Our situation is very hard. We haven’t been paid for several months. Essential needs are hard to get and the prices are high. We’re looking at goods we can’t buy,” Nabil Ibrahim, another Hodeidah resident, told Al Jazeera.

‘Unprecedented tragedy’

This is the third Ramadan Yemen faces in a state of war. A majority of the population has only limited access to food and medicine.

The UN needs $2.1bn to provide aid to Yemen. So far, only half the amount has been raised to help address what is calls a “tragedy of unprecedented proportion”.

“People from Hodeidah are living in a tragic situation. Ramadan arrives as people are suffering greatly from unpaid salaries, no electricity, no water with the hot weather and the blockade due to the ongoing war in Yemen,” Sadeq Al Saeedi, a charity worker, told Al Jazeera.

Yemen was already one of the poorest countries in the region.

The ongoing conflict between Houthi fighters and an Arab coalition has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people and pushed the country to a brink of famine, according to the UN.

It has also taken a toll on the country’s health facilities. A number of hospitals and clinics have been bombed, while others have had to close their doors because of the fighting.

Earlier this month, a state of emergency was declared in Yemen’s opposition-held capital, Sanaa, after the cholera outbreak killed scores of people.

Ramadan Mubarak! Saudi Arabia officially declares May 27 as the first day of Ramadan. Pakistan, India start on Sunday.

by Al Jazeera

Saudi Arabia’s High Judicial Court has announced that, based on confirmed sightings of Ramadan’s new moon crescent, the first day of Ramadan 1438 fasting will be Saturday, May 27.

Saturday was confirmed the first day of Ramadan in 33 other countries also, whereas Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Shia Muslims in Iraq declared Sunday May 28 to be their first day of Ramadan.

As per tradition, the sighting of the new moon marks the beginning of the Muslim lunar month of Ramadan.

Turkey and Muslim communities in America, Europe and Australia previously announced they would observe Ramadan fasting from May 27, based on astronomic calculations.

In Muslim-majority countries, offices are required by law to reduce working hours, and many restaurants are closed during daylight hours in Ramadan.

“Ramadan Mubarak” and “Ramadan Kareem” are common greetings exchanged in this occasion, wishing the recipient a blessed and generous Ramadan.

Moon sighting

Muslim lunar months last between 29 and 30 days, and depending on sighting of the moon on the 29th night of each month. If the moon is not visible, the month will last 30 days.

Astronomic predictions indicate that the new moon crescent should be visible either with the naked eye, or with a telescope from around the world on Friday evening.

Moon sighters in the UAE posted a photo showing the new moon crescent during the day on Friday.

Last year in May, member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, at the International Hijri Calendar Unity Congress held in Istanbul, voted in favour of adopting a single unified lunar calendar.

However, local sighting continues to be the default policy in each country.

End of Ramadan

Ramadan lasts either 29 or 30 days, depending on sighting of the moon on the 29th night of Ramadan, on Saturday June 24.

At the end of Ramadan, Muslims celebrate breaking their fast with the three-day festival of Eid al-Fitr, but holidays differ by country.

This year, Saudi Arabia announced holidays from the 25th of Ramadan until the 7th of Shawal, the lunar month after Ramadan.

As per astronomic calculations, Turkey and Muslim communities in the US and Europe expect the first day of Eid al-Fitr on Sunday, June 25.

Masked attackers open fire on vehicles travelling to Minya monastery, killing and wounding dozens, before fleeing scene.

An image grab taken from Egypt’s state-run Nile News TV shows the remains of the bus that was attacked while carrying Coptic Christians in Minya province [AFP/Nile News]

by Al Jazeera

Masked gunmen on Friday attacked two buses and a truck carrying Coptic Christians in Egypt, killing more than 20 people and wounding dozens, according to officials.

The attackers arrived in three pick-up trucks and opened fire on the vehicles carrying visitors to the Saint Samuel Monastery in the Minya province, about 220km south of the capital, Cairo, before fleeing the scene.

The interior ministry said at least 26 people were killed and 25 wounded in the attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Pictures of a bus at the scene aired by state TV showed its windows shot out.

“They used automatic weapons,” Essam el-Bedawi, Minya governor, told state media.

Security forces launched a hunt for the attackers, setting up dozens of checkpoints and patrols on the desert road.

Following the attack, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a meeting with security officials.

Egypt’s Christian minority, which makes up about 10 percent of the country’s population, has repeatedly been targeted by armed groups.

In April, at least 45 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in two separate suicide bomb attacks on churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria during Palm Sunday ceremonies.

The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group.

Following the Palm Sunday bombings, Sisi declared a nationwide three-month state of emergency.

A bombing at Cairo’s largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people and wounded 49 in December 2016, including many women and children.