ISIS' bombing Christians in Egypt.

1. Attacks Shows ISIS’ New Plan
Divide Egypt by Killing Christians
By DECLAN WALSHAPRIL 10, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/world/middleeast/egypt-christians-isis-palm-sunday-
attacks-sisi.html?emc=edit_th_20170411&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=48152027&_r=0
Photo
A funeral procession on Monday for victims of a church bombing in Alexandria,
Egypt. The attack killed 17 people.
CAIRO — Grief and rage flowed through Egypt’s Christian community
on Monday as tear-streaked mourners buried the victims of
the coordinated Palm Sunday church bombings that killed 45 people in
two cities. The cabinet declared that a state of emergency was in effect. A
newspaper was pulled off newsstands after it criticized the government.
It was just the reaction the Islamic State wanted.

2. Routed from its stronghold on the coast of Libya, besieged in Iraq and
wilting under intense pressure in Syria, the militant extremist group
urgently needs to find a new battleground where it can start to proclaim
victory again. The devastating suicide attacks on Sunday in the heart of
the Middle East’s largest Christian community suggested it has found a
solution: the cities of mainland Egypt.
Since December, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has signaled its
intent to wage a sectarian war in Egypt by slaughtering Christians in
their homes, businesses and places of worship. Several factors lie behind
the vicious campaign, experts say: a desire to weaken Egypt’s
authoritarian leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi; a need to gain a foothold in
Egypt beyond the remote Sinai deserts where jihadists have been
battling the army for years; and a desire to foment a vicious sectarian
conflict that would tear at Egypt’s delicate social fabric and destabilize
the state.
“There’s a significant propaganda factor to this,” said Mokhtar Awad, a
militancy expert at George Washington University. “ISIS wants to show
that it can attack one of the Arab world’s most populous countries.”
Few believe it can succeed. The sheer demographics of Egypt mitigate
any Iraq-type success, in which the Islamic State fed off deep tensions
between Sunnis and Shiites. Christians make up just 10 percent of
Egypt’s people, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, and despite deep-rooted
prejudices, there is no popular support for a bloody pogrom.
Yet for now, unless the Egyptian government can bridge its wide security
gaps, Egypt’s Christians seem likely to bear the brunt of the Islamic
State’s ambitions — and the fight could have broader consequences for
civil liberties and political freedoms in a country where both are already
in short supply.
A line of wooden coffins borne by Boy Scouts, and marked with the word
“martyr,” filed through the doors of an ancient monastery on the
outskirts of Alexandria on Monday. A mournful drumbeat accompanied
the procession. The coffins held the remains of some of the 17 people
killed on Sunday in a blast at the gates of St. Mark’s Cathedral, the
historic seat of Christendom in Egypt. It was perhaps the most ambitious
of the two attacks because the Coptic patriarch, Tawadros II, had been
inside the church at the time.
The scene also stepped up pressure on Mr. Sisi, who counts Christian
leaders among his staunchest allies.
His response, the imposition of a three-month state of emergency, was
met with a national shrug. Egyptians have lived under a state of
emergency for 44 of the past 50 years, and Mr. Sisi already has vast

3. powers that have led to the imprisonment of his rivals, mass trials and
unfettered surveillance of enemies.
This state of emergency, due to be approved by the rubber-stamp
Parliament on Tuesday, will probably entrench his autocratic tendencies.
Under the emergency law, suspected terrorists will be channeled
through special courts with a low evidence threshold and no appeals
process, and which operate entirely under Mr. Sisi’s control.
Photo
Relatives and other mourners showed their grief during the funeral for the victims
of the bombing of a cathedral in Alexandria.
Additionally, the president will have the power to censor newspapers and intercept
electronic communication, a provision that his supporters have suggested could be
used to crack down on critics on social media, one of the last arenas of relatively
unrestricted speech in Egypt.
“We’re likely to see people who tweet or use Facebook for political purposes, or to
call for protests, being tried in these courts,” said Mai El-Sadany, a nonresident
fellow for legal and judicial analysis at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

4. Apparently foreshadowing such a crackdown, the government on Monday blocked
distribution of Al Bawaba, a normally pro-state newspaper that blamed the Interior
Ministry for security lapses in the church bombings in Alexandria and Tanta, a city
in the Nile Delta. Parliament approved a law tightening the criminal code, while the
speaker, Ali Abdel Aal, told lawmakers that the emergency laws would be applied to
media outlets and social media.
VOCABULARY
grief: sorrow; desolation
tear-streaked: Sp.: manchados con lágrimas
Mourner: somebody at a funeral; Sp.: deudo
pulled off: removed
routed: sent
stronghold: fortress Sp. fortaleza
besieged: surrounded
wilting: withering Sp.: marchitándose
wage war: engage war
vicious: ferocious, nasty
foothold: secure place
tear: rip; tear at social fabric: Sp. romper el tejido social
the sheer demographics: la simple demografía
bridge gaps: find temporary solutions
bear the brunt: take the worst part
borne: carried
mournful: sad, sorrowful
drumbeat: rhythm of a drum: redoble
stepped up: increased
shrug: shoulder gesture meaning contempt, disdain
unfettered: not restricted
surveillance: close observation
rubber-stamp: sello de goma
entrench: establish
channel: reroute, divert; encaminar, derivar
crack down on: eliminate; take strong measures against
foreshadowing: predicting, announcing
crackdown: law enforcement; ajuste de riendas
lapse: failure