AQI kills for the "Islamic cause"

AQI can't kill Egyptian Christians, so they kill Iraqi Christians. Kinda like Saddam's intelligence personnel imprisoned, killed or raped a relative of an Iraqi who defected, and send him the videotape. But in the case of Iraqi Christians, they aren't even related to Egyptian Copts. AQI apparently believes they kill Iraqi Christians for the "Islamic cause" in general.

'Egypt's Christian minority, estimated at about 10 percent of the country's 80 million people, has grown more religiously conservative over the past three decades as has the country's Muslim majority.

Egypt's Salafi movement — extreme conservative Muslims — have long accused the Coptic Church here of conspiring to "Christianize" Egypt. Though Salafis in Egypt reject violence, their doctrine is only a few shades away from that of groups such as al-Qaida. Both adhere to a strict interpretation of Islam that supposedly is a purer form of Islam said to have been practiced by Islam's Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century.

The Salafis have set up dozens of websites and Facebook groups to spread the word about the two women.

Hossam Aboul Boukhar, the founder of one of the websites, KamiliaShehata.com, said the Shehata case is not an Egyptian matter anymore but "an Islamic cause." And he listed other women in similar situations.

"It is a phenomenon. The new Muslims, our sisters, are in misery because they are being tortured and imprisoned. We don't know what is going on inside the churches," he said.

In weekly protests from August to November, bearded men in white robes gathered outside mosques in Egypt to denounce Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic Christian leader of Egypt, as an "infidel." And they vowed revenge.

In one demonstration, Islamists raised a flag identical to that of al-Qaida in Iraq — a black banner emblazoned with the phrase: "There is no God but God and Muhammad is God's prophet." Two days later, al-Qaida in Iraq attacked the church.'