A coptic jewlery shop owner was gunned down, him and 3 others in his shop in Zeitoun, by 2 gunmen wearing sunglasses and wigs. The incident is problematic because the gunmen didn't attempt to steal anything, and the whole thing has the air of gangland assassination.
Two men in wigs and
sunglasses shot dead four Coptic Christians jewellery shop workers in
the Egyptian capital on Wednesday in an apparent gangland-style
killing, a security official and witnesses said.The shooting happened at
around 12:30 pm (0930 GMT) in the mixed Christian-Muslim district of
Zeitoun in northeast Cairo, the official said, adding that the
attackers escaped without stealing anything from the shop.Eyewitnesses said that the
men arrived at the shop on a motorbike, walked in and shot dead the
shop's owner and three employees before driving away, in a rare act of
brazen bloodshed in the capital."Preliminary investigations
show that the motivation behind the attack could have been revenge,"
the official said, adding that the owner had frequent disputes with
local residents.The official had initially said the killings were the result of a drive-by shooting.
Police, who swiftly cordoned off the area, found 15 revolver shell casings at the scene, the official said.
Now, I received over 5 calls from different coptic friends all frantic and all talk about how they believe this was done by muslims and that we are on the doorsteps of a fantastic case of sectarian strife. While their ranting has the air of conspiracies and panic to them ( no one knows the identity of the shooter and whether this is related to religion to begin with), this kind of talk is a harbinger in itself. A panicked coptic population that believes that muslims are out to kill them- with their general distrust of the egyptian authorities ability to protect them- could end up taking matters into their own hand, which could elad to catastrophic results. The other problem lies in the location: Zaitoun is a neighborhood with lots of christians, and it has 4 big churches there. But it also has the "AlAziz bellah" street, which is a hub for "Ansar Al Sunnah" a wahabi salafist islamist group in Egypt. That street houses tons of stores that sell nothing but inflammatory islamist speeches on tape (usually not very copt friendly) and it houses the "AlAziz Bellah" mosque, which, let's say, is an Ansar Al Sunnnah dominated mosque. There are usually tensions there to begin with between the christians and the muslims because of them, so if anyone commits any rash action, this whole area could explode in full muslims-chiristian conflict. It's still early for such talk, but one thing is true: whomever committed this crime, no matter what their reason might be, they are conjuring up the secterian demon, and that is never good.
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