20110101
reuters

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (Reuters) - A bomb killed 21 people outside a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria early on Saturday, and the interior ministry said a foreign-backed suicide bomber may have been responsible.

The blast did not originate in any of the cars that were destroyed, a ministry statement said. "It is likely that the device which exploded was carried by a suicide bomber who died among others," it added.

The circumstances of this and other recent attacks "clearly indicates that foreign elements undertook planning and execution," said the statement, carried by the official news agency.

The ministry had earlier said the blast, which wounded 43 people as worshippers marking the New Year left the church, had apparently been caused by a bomb in a car parked nearby.

The bombing prompted hundreds of Christians to take to the streets in protest. Some Christians and Muslims pelted each other with rocks, a witness said, and cars were set on fire.

Christians make up about 10 percent of Muslim-majority Egypt's 79 million people.

Egypt, due to hold a presidential election in September, has stepped up security around churches, banning cars from parking directly outside them, after an al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq issued a threat against the Church in Egypt in November.

The al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq, which claimed an attack on a church in Baghdad in November, threatened Egypt's Church over its treatment of women the group said the Church was holding after they had converted to Islam.