Extremist Attempts Attack on Upper Egypt Churchgoers

CAIRO, July 11 (Reuters) - Guards stopped a Muslim from carrying out a
knife attack on Christians at a church in Egypt on Tuesday, security
sources said. Police arrested Mohammed Masoud Khalil after he was stopped
by guards at the door of St. George's church in the southern Egyptian town
of Qous, the sources said. Police said he was mentally ill.

The authorities blamed mental illness for a knife attack by a Muslim on Christians in Alexandria in April. The attacker, who killed one Christian and wounded five others at two churches, has been committed to a mental
hospital.

Those stabbings provoked three days of Christian-Muslim street violence in
which one Muslim was killed. Many Christians say the government used mental illness to cover up sectarian motives behind the attack.

Coptic Christians comprise between 5 and 10 percent of Egypt's 73 million
people. The majority are Sunni Muslim. Relations between the two
communities are usually peaceful, but there are sporadic outbreaks of
violence.

In 1999, 22 people were killed in sectarian strife in southern Egypt.