A church in Rafah may not have been the target of an alleged bomb plot that was uncovered by the armed forces.
“The Church is not used. It is only ruins of a church that was damaged during the 25 January revolution,” said Nasser El-Azazy a reporter in Sinai.
Sinai activist Ahmed Abou Deraa confirmed the church was destroyed on 28 January 2011 and has not been renovated since then.
Colonel Ahmed Mohammed Ali, the spokesperson of the armed forces, posted on his Facebook page that three patrol units apprehended two cars at 1 am in the neighborhood of Al-Safaa.
A group of masked men managed to escape in one of the two cars, while the other car was captured by the army.
A search of the seized car turned up mobile TNT cartridges, two automatic weapons, 50 rounds of ammunition, five electric detonators and a rocket propelled grenade. The military suggested that the church in Rafah was the intended target of an attack.
Al-Safaa neighborhood is at least 500 km away from the church.
El-Azazy said: “I don’t think they attempted to blow up the church; I think they were just smuggling the explosives.”
The military is currently engaging in a sweep of the region to find the escaped car.
El-Azazy said that the church has not been assigned guard units since the revolution, either by the police or the army.
Colonel Ali could not be reached for comment.
