Six wanted over death of Irish peacekeeper in Lebanon


Jamie Prentis
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Lebanese security services are still searching for six people wanted over an attack that led to the death of an Irish peacekeeper in December, a judicial source said.

They are among seven charged last week by a military tribunal over the death of Pvt Sean Rooney, whose vehicle was shot at in the first deadly attack on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon since 2015.

Only one, charged with murder, has been detained. The six at large face charges that include attempted murder and damaging a vehicle.

The investigation is under the jurisdiction of military investigative judge Fadi Sawan, the source said. Mr Sawan was the initial judge asked to investigate the deadly 2020 Beirut blast that killed more than 215 people, injured thousands and destroyed large parts of the Lebanese capital.

But he was later replaced after charging a handful of senior politicians over the explosion who then protested against his appointment and argued he was not impartial.

Mr Sawan is also well known for prosecuting terrorism cases, including those involving people accused of joining ISIS and Al Qaeda-linked groups.

The Lebanese Army is leading the investigation and the search for the six is under way.

The attack took place in the village of Al Aqbiya in southern Lebanon, where Iran-backed political party and armed group Hezbollah holds sway. The group denies involvement in the attack. The only one of the seven arrested so far has been described in reports as a supporter of Hezbollah but not a member.

The Unifil convoy had been on its way to Beirut when it appeared to slightly veer off from the normal route peacekeepers would take from southern Lebanon to the capital.

About 11,000 UN peacekeepers are stationed in Lebanon, where the interim force has overseen a ceasefire with Israel — the arch enemy of Hezbollah.

More than 300 Unifil troops have been killed since 1978.

Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts

Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.

The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.

Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.

More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.

The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.

Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:

November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.

May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

April 2017Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.

December 2016A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.

July 2016Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.

May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.

New Year's Eve 2011A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.

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Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”

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