Egyptian president names 22-year-old as attacker of Cairo Coptic church

Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has named a 22-year-old man, Mahmoud Shafik Mohamed Mostafa as the suicide bomber behind the massacre at Cairo’s Coptic cathedral complex on Sunday.

President Fattah al-Sisi who has declared three days of national mourning attended a state funeral for the victims, most of whom were women and children.

No one has claimed responsibility but ISIL supporters have been celebrating on social media.

“What is happening is frustration from their side,” Sisi told mourners.

“They have been trying to break us for the last three years but they can’t – hitting our economy and with a wave of terrorist acts but they know that nothing will break us.”

The Egyptian leader said three men and a woman had been detained over the attack and that two more people were being sought.

While dismissing accusations of a security failure, the president used his address to urge the government to amend the country’s terrorism laws, which he said were “restricting the judicial system” in its battle to prevent such attacks in Egypt.

Mourners earlier packed the Virgin Mary and St Athanasius Church for a service led by the spiritual head of Egypt’s Orthodox Christians, Pope Tawadros II.

Copts have been targeted repeatedly by Islamist militants but Sunday’s attack was the deadliest on Egypt’s Christian minority in years.