An Egyptian Coptic priest was shot dead on Thursday in the Sinai Peninsula where authorities are battling a jehadis insurgency, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
Raphael Moussa, 46, died instantly when a man shot him in the head as he was standing next to his car in El-Arish, the capital of North Sinai, said Boulos Halim, a church spokesman.
The ISIS group’s Egypt branch claimed responsibility for the murder in a statement posted on social media, accusing him of “combating Islam”.
Moussa had earlier left a church where he attended mass, Halim said.
The interior ministry said the priest was gunned down after having gone to an area of El-Arish with mechanics to have his car repaired.
The ISIS affiliate in restive Sinai has waged an insurgency that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers.
It has kept up the attacks, mostly roadside bombings and ambushes, despite a massive military campaign to uproot jihadists from the peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
Moussa was not the first priest killed in Arish.