Egypt identifies Alexandria church suicide bomber

Egypt has named the suicide bomber who attacked a cathedral in Alexandria as 31-year-old Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak Abdullah, describing him as a fugitive with links to militant cells that carried out previous strikes in the country.

The attack outside Saint Mark's church in Alexandria on Palm Sunday killed 17 people and was claimed by the Islamic State group. Abdullah had detonated his explosives at the church’s entrance. Hours earlier, another bomb tore through a church in Tanta, a city in the Nile Delta.

Egypt's government imposed a three-month state of emergency in the wake of the attacks.

The interior ministry said in a statement that Abdullah was born in 1986 and had been a resident of Suez province and used to work for a petroleum company.

The ministry said it had determined his identity by comparing the DNA of remains found at the site of the bombing with the DNA of "runaway suspects".

Abdullah, who had worked for an oil company, was linked to a "terrorist" network, a cell from which carried out a previous bombing of a Cairo church in December that killed 29 people, the ministry added in a statement.

It said security forces were "pursuing efforts" to identify a second attacker who targeted the other church in Tanta hours, killing 28 worshippers. ISIS also claimed responsibility for that attack.

Egypt's Coptic Church announced on Wednesday that it would cut back Easter celebrations to a simple mass after the bombings.

Sunday's attacks were the latest against a religious minority increasingly targeted by Islamist militants, and a challenge to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has pledged to protect them as part of his campaign against extremism.