4 Shiites killed in sectarian clashes in Egypt

Four Shiites were killed in sectarian confrontation with Sunnis at a village in Egypt's Giza governorate, state-run Ahram news website reported on Sunday evening. Dozens of Sunnis from Abu Musallam village have burnt a house where 15 Shiites assembled and one of them delivered a religious speech deemed by Sunnis as offensive and insulting to the companions and the wife of Prophet Mohamed. The Sunni Muslims hurled the house with stones and Molotov cocktails. Four of the Shiites who escaped the house were caught by the Sunnis and beaten to death. Securities forces have been deployed to disperse the crowds until they finally contained the situation. Concerns were raised in Egypt after the 2011 political upheaval that toppled ex-president Hosni Mubarak over the spread of the Shiism in the Sunni-dominated Muslim country, particularly after the country's gradual restoration of ties with Shiite-oriented Iran after three decades of rift.