AhlulBayt News Agency - Egypt's former leading Muslim cleric, Ali Gomaa, has escaped unharmed from an apparent assassination attempt in Cairo, he told state television on Friday afternoon.
Gomaa told the television channel that four men had shot at him while he was approaching a mosque in 6 October city on the outskirts of Cairo on Friday afternoon, where he was scheduled to lead Friday prayers.
The four gunmen were hiding in a garden and opened fire on the cleric while he was about to enter the mosque.
"I took shelter behind the mosque's wall," he said.
He was unharmed and one of his body guards received a minor injury to the foot. The gunmen immediately fled the scene.
"If Ali Gomaa dies there are millions who will take his place," Gomaa told state television shortly after news of the attempt was made public.
The interior ministry said in a statement that the force guarding the Muslim cleric exchanged fire with the assailants, who subsequently fled the scene.
Gomaa said he insisted on delivering his Friday sermon and led the prayers despite the attack.
"This is a message to (the terrorists) that I will never waver in my war against them," he said.
Gomaa said later on Friday that the attack came in response to the army's killing on Thursday of the chief of the Egyptian affiliate of the so-called Islamic State group, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis.
The group is spearheading an Islamist insurgency in the northern part of the Sinai peninsula.
The privately-owned CBC Extra channel later aired footage showing armed guards escorting Gomaa out of the mosque following the shooting.
Egypt's Al-Azhar, the traditional seat of Sunni Islamic learning, commented on the incident on Friday afternoon, describing it as a "villainous, terrorist" attack that will not succeed in intimidating the "devoted" Muslim scholars.
Gomaa served as the country's grand mufti, the authority responsible for giving Islamic edicts, for almost a decade until 2013.
Gomaa, an outspoken critic of the Islamist opposition, has also suggested that the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group are non-Muslims and said the country's police and army should carry arms against them.
No group claimed the attempt on Gomaa's life.
Egypt is facing an Islamist insurgency led by Islamic State's local branch in North Sinai where hundreds of soldiers and police were killed. There have been attacks in Cairo and other cities as well.
The country's top prosecutor was assassinated by a car bomb in June last year.
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