Trump stresses need to defeat terrorists militarily after Egypt attack

Miami, Nov 25 (IANS) The President of the US denounced on Friday's attack on a Sufi mosque in Egypt that killed around 270 people and left 90 others wounded and reiterated his stance that terrorists must be defeated militarily.

In a message on his Twitter account, Donald Trump decried the "horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers" in that African nation's North Sinai region.

"The world cannot tolerate terrorism, we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!" Trump tweeted.

The President, who is celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with his family at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, said earlier Friday that he would be speaking by phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about "bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East," Efe news agency reported.

"I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!"

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to avenge victims of the brutal attack in the country's restive Sinai Peninsula, one of worst terror attacks in the nation's recent history.

A security official told Efe that an unknown assailant detonated explosives that had been planted at a mosque in the Sinai town of Bir al-Abd, near Arish. The blast occurred during Friday prayers, when the complex was packed with worshipers.

After the explosion, gunmen opened fire on those seeking to escape the building, which was a place of worship for Sufi Muslims, a sect of Islam that has been the target of persecution in the past.