Cairo reeling after clashes kill 17 Christian Copts

Egypt was reeling Monday in the wake of Sunday's deadly round of protests in Cairo, which claimed 24 lives. Seventeen of the fatalities were members of the country's Christian Coptic minority; the clashes arose as Egyptian state television falsely accused peaceful Coptic protesters Sunday of attacking the country's security forces, and urged mobs onto the streets to protect the country's army and police.

Sunday's incident marked the worst violence Cairo has seen since the onset of the so-called Arab Spring earlier this year. Popular protests in the city's central Tahrir Square led to the ouster in February of the country's long-standing authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak.

The shocking outbreak of violence erupted after Egypt's Copts staged a reportedly peaceful demonstration Sunday. Copt believers were protesting recent threats of violence against their church, which represents one of the oldest Christian civilizations in the world.

Egyptian state-run media reports claimed that Christian demonstrators were attacking the police and military and urged the country's population onto the streets to protect the security forces.

"Strangers got in the middle of our sons and committed mistakes to be blamed on our sons," a statement from Egypt's Coptic Church read in part, according to the New York Times' David Kilpatrick. The statement also said violent incidents against the country's Christian minority "occur repeatedly and go unpunished."

Egypt's Christian Coptic minority makes up about a 10th of Egypt's population of an estimated 85 million people.

"In a further sign of mistrust, the families of 17 Copts who were killed said they would refuse to allow the government to conduct autopsies, fearing it would lie about the results in order to protect the killers," Kilpatrick wrote. "The families said medical examiners in their own community would conduct the autopsies instead."

The United States and European Union expressed concern about the violence, but seemed to be caught somewhat off guard by the dark turn in events in Egypt's "Arab spring" transition. Sunday's outbreak, in fact, came just a few days after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Cairo to meet with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Panetta's counterpart in Egypt. Tantawi heads the Egyptian military command now overseeing Egypt's transition to parliamentary and presidential elections. The United States has given tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Egypt's military rulers, who had been appointed by the ousted Mubarak.

"The president is deeply concerned about the violence in Egypt that has led to a tragic loss of life among demonstrators and security forces," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a press statement Monday. "Now is a time for restraint on all sides so that Egyptians can move forward together to forge a strong and united Egypt. As the Egyptian people shape their future, the United States continues to believe that the rights of minorities--including Copts--must be respected, and that all people have the universal rights of peaceful protest and religious freedom."

"It now is clearer that it was Egyptian TV broadcasters who incited the violence. Extremely disturbing," said Michelle Dunne, a former State Department official working on Egypt, said by email Tuesday.

In past cases of sectarian violence in Egypt -- including the 2000 killings in the village of al-Kosh, and the January 2011 bombing of a church in Alexandria -- "there has never been a thorough investigation and prosecution of those responsible," Dunne, now with the Atlantic Council, noted. "Egyptian authorities have always given assurances at the beginning that there would be such actions and then backed away as soon as public attention moves on."

"This is a major test" for Egypt's transitional military rulers, she said, adding however, that she is not optimistic.