At midnight on New Year’s Eve, a bomb blast outside the Coptic Church of the Two Saints in Alexandria, Egypt killed 21 people and injured 80. Some suggest a car bomb, while Egyptian officials believe it was a suicide attack perpetrated by Al Qaeda forces from outside the country.
Egypt is currently looking for a successor for the current president Hosni Mubarak (age 82), and factions within the government are seeking to identify a stable leader. Some analysts suggest the bomb blast was designed to put pressure on the process of choosing a successor.