2011 Alexandria bombing

The 2011 Alexandria bombing was an attack on Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, on Saturday, 1 January 2011. Twenty three people died as a result of the attack, which occurred as Christian worshipers were leaving a new year service. Some 97 more were injured. The attack was the deadliest act of violence against Egypt's Coptic Christians in a decade, since the Kosheh massacre in 2000 left 20 Copts dead. The target of the bombing was the Saints Church, a Coptic church located across the street from the Masjid Sharq El-Madina mosque.

Copts in Egypt complain of increasing persecution, from attacks by Muslim extremists and what they see as official discrimination by the state. Copts celebrate Christmas on 7 January. This was the second consecutive Christmas with violence. On Christmas Eve in 2010, a Muslim gunman fired on worshipers leaving a church in Upper Egypt, killing 7 people.

In the months prior to the incident, the religious ambiance in Egypt had been clouded by anti-Church sentiment, in particular regarding the public allegation made by Mohammad Salim Al-Awa that the Coptic Orthodox Church was storing weapons in churches and monasteries.

In November, a group calling itself Al-Qaeda in Iraq announced that all Christians in the Middle East would be "legitimate targets." The Alexandria bombing occurred almost two months to the day after the attack on Our Lady of Salvation church in central Baghdad in what militants called a response to the mistreatment of Muslim converts by Egyptian Copts. Al-Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate claimed responsibility for that attack and made new threats against Christians. The group threatened to attack Egyptian Copts if their church did not free two Christians, it said had been "imprisoned in their monasteries" for having converted to Islam. The two women were Camilia Chehata and Wafa Constantine, the wives of Coptic priests whose claimed conversion caused a stir in Egypt.

Two weeks before the bombing an Islamist website called for attacks on a list of Egypt's churches, and included the church that was hit.

An explosive device detonated in front of the Coptic Orthodox church of Saint Mark and Pope Peter in the Sidi Bishr neighbourhood in Alexandria. Initial reports stated that it was a car explosion, however an Interior Ministry statement later declared that it was a suicide attack, through the Egyptian official news agency.