Daesh claims responsibility for Egypt bus attack

CAIRO: Daesh group has claimed responsibility for an attack on Coptic Christians traveling to a remote desert monastery south of Cairo that killed 29.
The group’s news agency, Aamaq, said on Saturday that an Daesh unit targeted the bus the previous day and put the death toll at 32.
The discrepancy in casualty figures is not uncommon in the aftermath of major attacks by the militants, who have been waging an insurgency centered at northern Sinai, though attacks on the mainland have recently increased.
Egypt responded to the attack, the fourth since December by Daesh to target Christians, with airstrikes against what the military says are bases in eastern Libya in which the militants have been trained.
Egyptian authorities say the death toll in the ambush attack on a bus transporting Christians to a monastery south of Cairo has risen to 29.
The Egyptian Cabinet said in a news release that 13 victims of Friday’s attack remain hospitalized in Cairo and the southern city of Minya where the attack took place. Authorities had previously said 28 were killed.
The attack came on the eve of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It was the fourth to target the country’s Christian minority since December.
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi said that suspected Daesh group militants attacked the bus and that Egypt had launched airstrikes against what he said were militant training bases in Libya.