Suspected ISIS militants gun down Coptic teacher in Egypt

A Coptic Christian teacher was killed by suspected Islamic State militants on Thursday while he was on his way to school in northern Sinai.

According to a report from The Associated Press, 50-year-old Gamal Tawfiq was shot in the head by two men on a motorbike who followed him from his home while he was walking on his way to work at El-Samran School in the coastal city of El-Arish.

No group has claimed responsibility for the killing, but security officials have said that the prime suspect was the ISIS affiliate in Sinai. It was the second murder of a Christian in the same region in less than a week. A local veterinarian named Bahgat Zakher, a Coptic Christian, was killed by suspected militants in El-Arish last week.

In January, five Coptic Christians were murdered in Egypt in four separate incidents over a two-week time span.

One of the victims was a 37-year-old father of two, Ishak Ibrahim Fayez Younan, who was found dead in his apartment by his brother on Jan. 16 with his throat slashed. The police believe that robbery was the motive for the crime, but no valuables were taken from the victim.

Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 92 million population, have long complained that they have been frequent targets of Islamic militants.

Since the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak, Islamic militants have gained a strong foothold in northern Sinai. The insurgency became worse after the military's 2013 ouster of Egypt's Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. Many Christian supported the ouster, which prompted the militants to retaliate against them.

"For long, incidents of shooting and killing Christians were sporadic, but recently we are witnessing an increase that I think will turn into a repetitive pattern in el-Arish," said Ishaq Ibrahim, a researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

In December, ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing inside Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral. At least 25 people, including women and children, were killed in what was considered to be one of the deadliest attacks against Christians in Egypt in years.

International Christian Concern (ICC), an organization that monitors attacks against Christians across the globe, said that the attack must serve as a "wakeup call to the Egyptian government and the international community that the Christian population in Egypt is in grave danger from religious attacks."