Alwaght- Death toll from a bloody attack on a mosque in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has reached 305, including 27 children, the country's chief prosecutor said in a statement on Saturday.
According to Nabil Sadeq's statement read out on Egyptian state-run news channel Nile TV, Friday's terrorist attack also left 126 people wounded.
The prosecutor also gave more detail about how the brutal attack unfolded, saying it was carried out by 25-30 militants who arrived at the mosque in the small town of Bir Abed in five all-terrain vehicles. He said the militants stationed themselves at the mosque's main door and 12 windows before opening fire on worshipers inside. They also torched seven cars belonging to the worshipers that were parked outside.
The attackers had long beards and hair, were wearing military fatigues and were armed with heavy machine guns, according to the statement. Although there was no claim of responsibility for the attack on the mosque that is frequented by Sufi Muslims, a mystic school of Islam that militants consider heretic, it bears the hallmarks of a strike by ISIS terrorist group.
State prosecutor's statement, also, confirmed that one of those who entered the mosque was carrying an ISIS flag.
Egypt's military said earlier Saturday that warplanes have struck several vehicles used in the attack, killing all passengers.
"The Egyptian Air Force pursued the terrorist elements, discovered and destroyed a number of vehicles that carried out the brutal terrorist killings, and killed all terrorists inside those vehicles," military spokesman Tamer Rifai said in a statement Saturday.
It also targeted a number of terrorist outposts containing weapons, ammunition and radical elements, Rifai said.
