Christian Is Killed in Shooting on Train in Egypt

CAIRO — A gunman jumped aboard a train heading toward the Egyptian capital on Tuesday and opened fire on passengers, killing one Christian man and injuring five other Christians, the Interior Ministry said.

It remained unclear whether the man, who used a handgun, had singled out Christians. But word of the shooting quickly reignited the raw emotions of Egypt’s Coptic Christian population, still smoldering after the bombing of a Coptic Christian church less than two weeks ago that left 21 people dead and led to widespread rioting.

More than 200 angry protesters converged outside a hospital where the wounded from the train were taken, and the police dispersed them with tear gas.

An Interior Ministry statement said the authorities had arrested the gunman, a Muslim, and were actively seeking a motive for the shooting.

The suspect was identified as Amer Ashour Abdelzaher, an off-duty policeman. The Interior Ministry statement identified the victim as Fathy Said Ebeid, 71, and said the wounded included Mr. Ebeid’s wife, another man and three other women.

Mr. Abdelzaher boarded the train in Minya Province, an area south of Cairo along the Nile that has a sizable Christian population.

The shooting came a day after Pope Benedict XVI called on Egypt and other predominantly Muslim nations to do more to protect their Christian populations after a spate of recent violent episodes.

The pope’s comments, delivered in the course of an annual address to Vatican diplomats, rankled the Egyptian government, which recalled its ambassador from the Vatican on Tuesday in response.

“We will not allow any non-Egyptian party to intervene in our internal affairs under any pretext,” the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Jan. 1 bombing, which occurred after New Year’s Mass, was the worst attack against Christians in Egypt in recent memory and set off days of protests by Christians calling for better protection and equal treatment from the government. Coptic Christians in Egypt celebrated their Christmas last week under heavy security.

The bombing appeared to awaken the country to the threat posed by a sharp rise in fundamentalist religious identification, a state of affairs that until recently the government strongly denied. Unrest in Egypt has increased the chance that its ailing 82-year-old president, Hosni Mubarak, will seek a sixth six-year term this year, to preserve the status quo.

Mona El-Naggar reported from Cairo, and J. David Goodman from New York.