POPE Benedict XVI has condemned the "cowardly" New Year's Eve suicide attack on a church in Egypt.
The blast killed 21 people and left scores injured.
"This
cowardly gesture of death, like that in which bombs were left near the
homes of Christians in Iraq to force them to leave, is an offence
against God and all humanity," Benedict told hundreds of pilgrims in St
Peter's Square.
"Faced with this strategy of
violence targeting Christians, and the consequences for all the
population, I pray for the victims and their loved ones," the pope said
during his Sunday Angelus address.
Twenty-one people were killed and 79 wounded in the suicide bombing on the Coptic Al-Qiddissin church in Alexandria.
SIC: HS/AUS