ABU MUSSALEM: Residents of an Egyptian village outside Cairo said they were “proud” of the mob lynching of four Shias in an attack that followed weeks of anti-Shia rhetoric in the media.
Witnesses and security officials told AFP that on Sunday hundreds of residents of Abu Mussalem, a village in Giza province south of Cairo, surrounded the house of a Shia resident after learning that a leading Shia cleric, Hassan Shehata, was inside.
The mob threw molotov cocktails at the house, situated in a tiny alley, hoping to set it ablaze.
The crowd chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) and “Shias are infidels” before storming the house, dragging the Shias out and beating them, witnesses told AFP.
Four people died including Shehata and his brother, and several others were wounded.
In Abu Mussalem, where residents refer to Shias as “infidels”, men filmed the attack and exchanged mobile phone video clips and pictures with each other, describing how “proud” they were of the lynching. “We’re happy about what happened. It should have happened long ago,” teacher Mohamed Ismail told AFP, to the approving nods of residents. One person, who declined to give his name, said people had been “furious with Shehata because he recently convinced several young residents to convert to Shiism.”
AFP
