Egypt’s chief prosecutor said in a statement on Saturday that the attack on a Sinai mosque a day before has killed 305 people, including 27 children.
In his statement, Nabil Sadeq said that the attack also left 126 people wounded.
Sadeq said the attack was carried out by 25-30 militants who arrived at the mosque in the small town of Bir al-Abd in five all-terrain vehicles. The militants stationed themselves at the mosque’s main door and 12 windows before opening fire on worshippers inside. They also torched seven cars belonging to the worshippers that were parked outside.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, the deadliest by Islamic extremists in Egypt’s modern history. The mosque is frequented by Sufi Muslims, a mystic school of Islam that militants consider heretic.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has ordered the construction of a mausoleum in memory of the people killed inside the mosque in northern Sinai.
A presidential statement did not say where the mausoleum would stand or who would be commissioned to build it, but the decision to have one reflects the depth of grief felt by the government over the death of so many people in Friday’s attack.More than 300 people have been killed after a gun and bomb terror attack at a packed mosque in Egypt's North Sinai province today.
Another 130 people are reported to have been injured, making the attack the worst in the country's modern history.
The terrorists reportedly detonated a bomb in the mosque's creche before firing on fleeing worshippers while blocking escape routes with burnt-out cars.
The suspected Islamic State attack took place at the Al-Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed, near El-Arish, during Friday prayers. The death toll has risen to 305, Egyptian state television reported, quoting the public prosecutor.
US President Donald Trump has condemned the mass murder as a 'horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers', adding: 'The world cannot tolerate terrorism.'An improvised explosive device (IED) is believed to have been used before it was followed up with machine gunfire from multiple gunmen using four off-road vehicles.
A witness said: 'They were shooting at people as they left the mosque.
'They were shooting at the ambulances, too.'
Some reports have claimed the bomb was set off in the children's kindergarten area of the mosque before the terrorists - in military uniforms and wielding black flags - slaughtered those who fled.
They added that IS militants had blocked escape routes from the area by blowing up cars and leaving the burning wrecks blocking the roads.
Another report claims that terrorists wearing suicide vests hid themselves among the people at the mosque before detonating the bombs.
MP Mustafa Bakri branded the situation 'catastrophic' on Twitter.
He added: 'The terrorists wore masks and surrounded the mosque during prayers, and terrorists wearing belts were hidden among the worshippers.'
A tribal leader and head of a Bedouin militia that fights Islamic State said that the mosque is known as a place of gathering for Sufis.The Islamic State group shares the puritan Salafi view of Sufis as heretics for seeking the intercession of saints.
MENA reported that Egypt's presidency declared a three-day mourning period for the attack, as President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi convened a high-level meeting of security officials.
Cairo's international airport boosted security following the attack, with more troopers and forces seen patrolling passenger halls, conducting searches and manning checkpoints at airport approaches.
Resident Ashraf el-Hefny said many of the victims were workers at a nearby salt firm who had come for Friday services at the mosque, which had contained some 300 worshipers.
'Local people brought the wounded to hospital on their own cars and trucks,' he said.
British prime minister Theresa May said she was 'appalled by the sickening attack', which she declared an 'evil and cowardly act'.
UK foreign minister Boris Johnson, meanwhile, condemned the 'barbaric attack' in a post on Twitter, while his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed his condolences to the families of victims of the 'despicable attack'.Ahmed Abul Gheit, head of the Arab League, which is based in Cairo, condemned the 'terrifying crime which again shows that Islam is innocent of those who follow extremist terrorist ideology,' his spokesman said in a statement.
The jihadists had previously kidnapped and beheaded an elderly Sufi leader, accusing him of practising magic which Islam forbids, and abducted Sufi practitioners later released after 'repenting.'
The group has killed more than 100 Christians in church bombings and shootings in Sinai and other parts of Egypt, forcing many to flee the peninsula.
The military has struggled to quell the jihadists who pledged allegiance to IS in November 2014.
IS regularly conducts attacks against soldiers and policemen in the peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, although the frequency and scale of such attacks has diminished over the past year.They have since increasingly turned to civilian targets, attacking not only Christians and Sufis but also Bedouin Sinai inhabitants accused of working with the army.
Aside from IS, Egypt also faces a threat from Al-Qaeda-aligned jihadists who operate out of neighbouring Libya.
A group calling itself Ansar al-Islam - Supporters of Islam in Arabic - claimed an October ambush in Egypt's Western Desert that killed at least 16 policemen.
Many of those killed belonged to the interior ministry's secretive National Security Service.
The military later conducted air strikes on the attackers, killing their leader Emad al-Din Abdel Hamid, a most wanted jihadist who was a military officer before joining an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Libya's militant stronghold of Derna.
Reacting to the news, Britain's ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, tweeted: 'I am disgusted by the evil attack that killed & injured so many Egyptians in Sinai today. On behalf of the UK my deep condolences to all involved.
'These attacks on people praying in mosques & churches only strengthen our determination to stand together, & defeat terrorism & hate.'
