Former Egyptian Interior Minister May Be Responsible For Bombing

Egyptian general prosecutor Abd al-Majid Mahmud opened an investigation Monday on allegations that Egypt's former Interior Minister, Habib al-Aldy may have been directly responsible for the New Year's Day bombing in Egypt of a Coptic Christian church that killed 24 people. According to the Proclamation leading to the investigation,

the former interior ministry had masterminded the deadly church attack with the intent to blame it on Islamists, escalate government crackdown on them, and gain increased western support for the regime.

Predictably, al-Aldy had blamed al-Qeada for the bombing, obviously in an attempt to throw Western powers, particularly the U.S., red meat to encourage support.

The massive support shown by Muslim Egyptians for Coptic Christians after the bombing may have directly led to the present protests in Egypt calling for Mubarak's ouster. Those protests are certain to get more vocal as this news gets out. What's more, it is increasingly clear that the entire Mubarak regime needs to be swept out, and simply replacing Mubarak with his vice President will not be enough.