Egypt: Second Christian killed in 2 months by Muslims in Sinai

"And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality."
Barack Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009.

Cairo, 11 July (AKI) - A Christian shopkeeper's headless corpse was found in the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday, the second slaying of Christian there since the military deposed Egypt's Islamist president Mohammed Morsi on 3 July.

Arabic satellite TV channel al-Arabiya cited Egyptian security sources as saying that 60-year-old Magdy Habashi had been abducted last Saturday in the city of Sheikh Zweid. His remains were found in a cemetery.

A Coptic Christian priest, Mina Abboud Sharobeen, was shot dead by gunmen on 6 July in the flashpoint city al-Arish in the northern Sinai.

Investigators suspect Islamic extremists are behind the two murders.

Egypt's Christians make up around 10 percent of the country's population and have frequently been targeted by Islamists.

Islamist extremists are believed to have shot dead a 28-year-old man who ran a bar selling alcohol the centre of al-Arish in May.

The ousting of Egypt's longterm president Hosni Mubarak in a popular revolt in 2011 emboldened militant Islamists who have carried out a number of attacks in the lawless North Sinai and across the border in Israel.