CAIRO, Jan 2, (Agencies): Egypt is holding seven people for questioning over the New Year’s Day bombing of a church in the northern city of Alexandria and has released 10 others, a security source said on Sunday.
Another source said questioning was continuing related to the attack, which killed 21 people outside the church during a midnight service. He said “a number” of suspects had been detained and most were held briefly before being freed.
The suspected suicide bomber wounded 97 people in the blast, which prompted hundreds of Christians in Muslim-majority Egypt to protest against a failure of the authorities to protect them.
Pope Benedict, head of the Roman Catholic church, condemned it as a “vile gesture”, the latest in a series of attacks on Christians in the Middle East and Africa.
Egyptian officials said there were indications “foreign elements” were behind the blast and said the attack seemed to have been the work of a suicide bomber.
Extra police officers were posted outside several churches in Cairo and Alexandria on Sunday, preventing cars from parking next to the buildings, witnesses said.

An Iraqi group linked to al Qaeda threatened the Church in Egypt with attack in November and a statement on an Islamist website, posted about two weeks before the Alexandria bombing, urged Muslims to attack Coptic churches in Egypt and elsewhere.
One security source said seven people were being detained, and 10 had been released after questioning.
“There are people being held and investigated. This is part of the investigations to reveal the mysterious circumstances of the incident and gather information,” said the second source, who declined to give specify how many were being detained.
President Hosni Mubarak, 82, has pledged to track down the culprits and called for national unity, saying the attack was directed at all Egyptians, not just Christians.
Dozens of Christians gathered inside a cathedral compound on Sunday to demand the state and church do more to help them.

One protester, Nader Shenouda, said: “When there was a threat from al Qaeda a month or a month and a half ago, did the government have to wait till the disaster happens before they (the government) protect us?”
Their protest coincided with a meeting between the pope and Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, the head of al Azhar, Egypt’s most prestigious seat of Sunni Muslim learning. The sheikh expressed condolences.
Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 79 million people. Tensions often flare between Christians and Muslims over issues such as building churches or close relationships between members of the two faiths.
Analysts said the attack was on a much bigger scale than typical sectarian flare-ups but said laws that make it easier to build a mosque than a church, and similar causes of Christian complaint, meant such an attack would fuel sectarian tension.
“Right now Copts feel Muslims (as a whole) struck at them, rather than seeing it as a terrorist attack by one Muslim, and it is due to this ... feeling of discrimination,” said Hisham Kassem, a publisher and rights activist.

Egyptian security officials say the police investigation into a church bombing that killed 21 people is focusing on a local group of Islamic hard-liners that is inspired by but not directly linked to al-Qaida.
The officials say police are also examining lists of air passengers who arrived recently in Egypt from Iraq, where the local al-Qaida branch has threatened Egyptian Christians.
Egypt’s top Muslim cleric on Sunday criticised Pope Benedict XVI’s call for world leaders to defend Christians as interference in his country’s affairs, the official MENA news agency reported.
The call, following a deadly church car-bombing in northern Egypt, was “unacceptable interference in Egypt’s affairs,” Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the oldest Islamic seat of learning, told reporters.
“I disagree with the pope’s view, and I ask why did the pope not call for the protection of Muslims when they were subjected to killings in Iraq?” he said at a news conference.
Benedict at a New Year’s Mass at the Vatican appealed for the “concrete and constant engagement of leaders of nations” to protect Christians in the Middle East, in what he termed a “difficult mission.”
In the wake of rising tension and “especially discrimination, abuse and religious intolerance which are today striking Christians in particular, I once again launch a pressing appeal not to give in to discouragement and resignation,” he said.

Meanwhile, christians prayed Sunday at a church targeted by an apparent suicide bomber, as Egypt pointed the finger of blame at international “terrorism” and fears of sectarian violence mounted.
“With our soul and our blood we will redeem the Holy Cross,” the grieving congregation chanted at the Coptic Al-Qiddissin church in Alexandria at Sunday mass a day after the bombing.
Bloodstains from Saturday’s attack were still visible on the facade of the church.
The attack sparked angry street protests in Alexandria and clashes between hundreds of Christian youths and police.
There was no immediate claim, but Al-Qaeda has called for punishment of Egypt’s Copts over claims that two priests’ wives they say had converted to Islam were being held by the Church against their will.
At least 5,000 people attended funerals late on Saturday for the victims at a monastery outside Alexandria, where crowds of mourners shouted slogans and refused to accept official condolences.
“No, no, no,” the crowd shouted as a Church official tried to read out condolences from Mubarak.
The Church said in a statement that the attack “constituted a dangerous escalation in sectarian incidents against the Copts.”

Government and independent newspapers in Cairo warned on Sunday that “civil war” could break out unless Christians and Muslims close ranks.
The papers also urged the government to give serious consideration to the plight of the Copts, who account for up to 10 percent of Egypt’s 80-million population and often complain of discrimination.
“Someone wants to make this country explode... We must realise that there is a plot aimed at triggering religious civil war,” the pro-government daily Rose el-Yussef said.
The independent paper Al-Shorouk said Christians had a right to be angry, but urged them not to play the game of “the instigators of (Saturday’s) crime.”
“If all goes as planned, criminal operations against Coptic targets and holy places will increase. Copts will clash with their Muslim neighbours and we will be stuck in marshlands like Lebanon was in April 1975,” Al-Shorouk said of the 15-year Lebanese civil war unleashed that month.
Christian protesters on Saturday heckled police and showered them with stones as they shouted slogans against Mubarak’s regime.
“O Mubarak, the heart of the Copts is on fire,” protesters chanted as they darted in and out of side-streets around the bloodied church to shower police with stones. Police fired tear gas grenades at the demonstrators.