EGYPT - Riots, church burning mar Muslim-Christian relations

CAIRO (AP):

Relations between Egypt's Muslims and Christians degenerated to a new low yesterday after riots overnight left 12 people dead and a church burned, adding to the disorder of the country's post-revolution transition to democracy.

The attack on the church was the latest sign of assertiveness by an extreme, ultraconservative movement of Muslims known as Salafis, whose increasing hostility toward Egypt's Coptic Christians over the past few months has met with little interference from the country's military rulers.

Salafis have been blamed for other recent attacks on Christians and others they don't approve of. In one attack, a Christian man had an ear cut off for renting an apartment to a Muslim woman suspected of involvement in prostitution.

The latest violence, which erupted in fresh clashes yesterday between Muslims and Christians who pelted each other with stones in another part of Cairo, also pointed to the weakness of the armed forces council that has taken temporary control of the country after Hosni Mubarak's February 11 ouster from the presidency.

After the overnight clashes in the slum of Imbaba, residents turned their anger toward the military. Some said they and the police did almost nothing to intervene in the five-hour frenzy of violence.