CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday condemned threats by the Al-Qaeda franchise in Iraq against Coptic Christians in Egypt and promised to protect them, the official MENA news agency reported.
An Al-Qaeda group, claiming responsibility for a bloody hostage taking in a Baghdad church last week, threatened to target the region’s Christians if the Coptic church did not release two women rumored to have converted to Islam.
Mubarak told Pope Shenouda III in a phone call that he rejected "pushing Egypt’s name into the terrorist act that targeted a church in Baghdad," MENA reported.
"The president affirmed his extensive solicitude for the protection of the nation’s sons, Muslims and Copts, from the forces of terrorism and extremism," it added. An official said security has been tightened around Coptic churches.
In an internet audio tape, the Islamic State of Iraq referred to two priests’ wives who left their homes in separate incidents and who were rumored to have converted to Islam before police escorted them back.
The Coptic church denied they had converted to Islam.
