By Jailan Zayan

Agence France Presse

CAIRO: Egyptian Interior Minister Habib al-Adly Sunday accused a Palestinian group of masterminding the New Year’s church attack in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria that killed 23 people.

“The Palestinian Islamic Army, which has links to Al-Qaeda, is behind the attack on Al-Qiddissin Church in Alexandria,” the interior minister said in a speech to mark Police Day, carried live on state television.

President Hosni Mubarak took to the stage to congratulate the police “for finding the perpetrators of the terrorist act in Alexandria.” The Egyptian leader also lashed out at Western countries who called for more protection for the country’s Christian minority.

“I say to those, some from friendly countries, who call for the protection of Copts of Egypt, I say to them that the time for foreign protection and tutelage is gone, and will not return,” Mubarak said. “We will not accept any pressure or interference in Egypt’s affairs,” he added.

In a swift response, the Palestinian Army of Islam denied any involvement in the deadly attack.

“The Army of Islam has no relation, whether close or distant, to the attack on the Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt,” a spokesman for the group, who gave his name as Abu Muthanna, told AFP.

“The Mossad was responsible for the attack.”

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum Sunday defended the Salafist group.

“We confirm that the Zionist Mossad is behind the church crime in Alexandria,” he told AFP.

“Our weapons are directed at the Zionist enemy and the conflict arena with that enemy is inside Palestine,” he added, insisting that “Al-Qaeda does not exist in Gaza at all.”

Addressing senior officials and members of the police force, Mubarak said the assault on the church had tried to target Egypt’s unity and firmly rejected foreign calls for the protection of the country’s Christians as “interference.”

“The latest attack in Alexandria, represents a pitiful attempt to bring [terrorism] back to Egypt,” this time in “a bid to stir division between the Copts and the Muslims.”

An Egyptian security official told AFP that five Egyptians were arrested around 10 days ago in Alexandria in connection with the attack. “During questioning, the members of this group said that the planning of the attack had come from abroad,” the source said.

An Interior Ministry statement later identified 26-year-old Alexandria resident Ahmad Lotfi Ibrahim as a lead suspect in the attack, saying he was recruited by the Army of Islam when he sneaked across the border into the Gaza Strip in 2008.

It said operatives from the Army of Islam tasked him with monitoring Christian and Jewish places of worship in Alexandria.

On Jan. 1, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a church in the Mediterranean city as worshippers emerged from a New Year’s Eve Mass.

No one has claimed responsibility for the Alexandria church attack, which followed threats to Egypt’s Copts from the Al-Qaeda linked group in Iraq that claimed an Oct. 31 attack on a Baghdad church.

In 2010, six Copts were gunned down as they came out of a Christmas Mass in the southern city of Naga Hammadi, in an attack that also left one Muslim policeman dead.