Hundreds of Egyptian riot
police are deployed outside the church in Alexandria where 21
Christians were killed in a New Year's Day bomb attack.
On Sunday, crowds of Christians took to the streets of Alexandria and the capital, Cairo, to denounce the attack.
Several suspects are being questioned over the bombing, which the Egyptian authorities have blamed on foreigners.
The country is on high alert ahead of the Coptic Christmas holiday, which falls on Friday.
Security forces have tightened surveillance at airports and
ports to prevent suspects from heading out of Egypt, and set up new
checkpoints across the country, press reports said.
Meanwhile, the most senior Muslim cleric in Egypt, Sheikh
Ahmed al-Tayeb, has accused Pope Benedict XVI of interfering in Egypt's
internal affairs, after he called on world leaders to protect Middle
East Christians.
Shock and anger
The situation in Alexandria is still very tense, the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from the Mediterranean port city.
Ranks of riot police surrounded the church following sporadic clashes overnight between young Coptic men and police forces.
There are also fears of new protests by Copts following a
large protest in Cairo on Sunday night outside St Mark's Cathedral -
headquarters of Coptic leader Pope Shenouda III.
Forty-five policemen were wounded at that demonstration.
The overall feeling is one of anger and shock at the scale of the attack in Alexandria, our correspondent says.
The bombing killed 21 people and injured another 70 in the
early hours of Saturday, while worshippers were leaving midnight mass at
al-Qiddissin (The Saints) church to bring in the New Year.
There is a real feeling among Egypt's Coptic community that
Christians are not being protected and that they are second-class
citizens, our correspondent says.
Al-Qaeda threats
The Egyptian government is calling for unity, and the Muslim
clergy and the Coptic Church have given a joint press conference in
which they declared that the attack must not be allowed to divide the
two communities.
But beneath the surface there is deep sectarian tension in
Egypt that has been growing for the last 10 to 20 years, and people in
the Coptic community are now very afraid, our correspondent says.
Dr Dalia Nabil, who has been treating many of the patients
from the blast, told the BBC a lot of Copts were now thinking of leaving
Egypt.
"A lot of us think that this is a plan to make Christians go away from Egypt. The planner is al-Qaeda," Dr Nabil said.
"Things are not under control from the government," she added.
No-one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which
happened in the early hours of Saturday, though analysts say suspicion
is likely to fall on Islamist radicals inspired by al-Qaeda.
Christians in the Coptic Orthodox Church make up about 10% of Egypt's population. Most Egyptians are Muslims.
In recent months, some Muslims have accused churches of
holding converts to Islam against their will - charges the Church
denies.
In October, the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant umbrella
group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, threatened the Copts of Egypt and
called for the alleged converts to be released.
Papal 'interference'
The latest attack has been strongly condemned in Egypt and abroad.
President Hosni Mubarak said it bore the hallmark of "foreign hands" seeking to destabilise Egypt.
At the Vatican, Pope Benedict called it a "vile gesture", while US President Barack Obama has described it as a "heinous act".
However, the Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb, criticised
Pope Benedict's call for world leaders to defend Christians as
"unacceptable interference in Egypt's affairs".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday condemned the
bombing as "barbaric" while French PM Francois Fillon prayed for the
victims at a church in the southern Egyptian city of Aswan, where he was
on a private visit, his office said.
Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city with a population of about 4 million, has seen sectarian violence in the past.
In 2006, there were days of clashes between Copts and Muslims
after a Copt was stabbed to death during a knife attack on three
churches.
SIC: BBC/INT'L