Trump condemns Egypt mosque attack as death toll soars to 235

“Horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers in Egypt,” Trump tweeted.

“The world cannot tolerate terrorism, we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!” he wrote.

The attack occurred in the town of Bir Al-Abed, about 85 miles southwest of Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, which since 2011 has had a low-level insurgency with links to the Islamic State.

Eyewitnesses told Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram gunmen opened fire after detonating improvised explosive devices during Friday prayers.

The mosque follows the Sufi tradition within Sunni Islam, Al-Ahram reports. Jihadis detest Sufi veneration of saints.

It’s not immediately clear if ISIS-associated insurgents claimed credit.

The attack is a major escalation in violence in the remotely populated region where jihadis have beheaded alleged Israeli spies and slaughtered Egyptian security personnel in shootouts.

Although the attack is shocking in scale, ISIS militants have destroyed Sufi sites elsewhere, bulldozing a shrine in Libya, where the group formerly controlled territory, and killing 83 people with a February suicide attack on a shrine in southern Pakistan.

There have been several attacks on another large Egyptian religious minority, Coptic Christians, since the country’s Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi was ousted in 2013 by current Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who has a more secular outlook.

Recent terrorist attacks in Egypt also include the 2015 downing of a Russian jet with 224 fatalities. A bomb is believed to have been aboard the flight, which left the Sinai Peninsula’s southern resort area.