CAIRO — Militants in military-style uniforms opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians in central Egypt on Friday, killing at least 28 people in the latest bloodshed targeting the country’s Christian minority, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the Islamic State has claimed links to previous attacks against Egypt’s Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population.

The attack also took place on the eve of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, a time when some militant factions have stepped up attacks in the past.

The ambush — in the Minya region about 150 miles south of Cairo — underscored the increasing pressures on Egyptian forces as Islamist militants gain greater footholds around the country, undercutting Egypt’s vital tourism industry and forcing greater security for Coptic Christians and others targeted by militants.

The Minya governor, Maj. Gen. Essam el-Bedewey, said at least 28 people were killed and at least 25 were wounded when the attackers fired on the bus heading for the St. Samuel Monastery, one of several pilgrimage sites in an area that is home to a large portion of Egypt’s Christian population.

The Reuters news agency and other reports said children were among the dead.

[Palm Sunday bombings bring state of emergency]

A member of the region’s security department, Maj. Mohamed Abdel-Moneim, told reporters that about 10 men wearing military-style gear carried out the attack.

Last month, twin bomb blasts rocked churches in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria and the northern city of Tanta, leaving 44 dead and prompting Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, to declare a state of emergency.

After the latest attack, Sissi called an emergency meeting of security officials, state-run media reported.

In late April, Pope Francis visited Egypt as part of Vatican outreach to Egypt’s embattled Christians, whose community dates back to the early centuries of the faith. But the papal trip also brought denunciations from Islamist militants and warnings of further reprisals.

In December, a bomb hit the main cathedral in Cairo, killing 25 people as part of what is being described as a new strategy by the Islamic State to target Christians.

Christians have been generally supportive of Sissi’s military-backed government, but have become increasingly critical of the inability of the country’s security forces to protect their places of worship.

“The state is doing its best, but we need more efforts,” Minya’s Coptic Bishop Makarios told The Washington Post. “They [security forces] are always present and on guard after the attack takes place, and keep their security measures tightened for a short while after. . . . What we need is real effort exerted to ensure this is not repeated, not just solidarity and compassion.”

Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

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Palm Sunday attacks kill 44 in Egypt

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BRUSSELS — President Trump exported the confrontational, nationalist rhetoric of his campaign across the Atlantic on Thursday, shaming European leaders for not footing more of the bill for their own defenses and lecturing them to stop taking advantage of U.S. taxpayers.

Speaking in front of a twisted shard of the World Trade Center at NATO’s gleaming new headquarters in Brussels, Trump upbraided America’s longtime allies for “not paying what they should be paying.” He used a ceremony to dedicate the memorial to NATO’s resolve in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States as a platform from which to exhort leaders to “focus on terrorism and immigration” to ensure their security.

And he held back from the one pledge NATO leaders most dearly wanted to hear: an unconditional embrace of NATO’s solemn treaty commitment that an attack on a single alliance nation is an attack on all of them.

Instead, European leaders gazed unsmilingly at Trump while he said that “23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be paying,” and that they owe “massive amounts” from past years — a misstatement of NATO’s spending targets, which guide nations’ own domestic spending decisions.

[Fact checker: Why Trump is simply wrong about NATO funding]

The harsh tone had a toll, as Trump was left largely on his own after the speech as leaders mingled and laughed with each other, leaving the U.S. president to stand silently on a stage ahead of a group photo.

The long day of gruff Brussels meetings was a contrast from his friendlier Middle East encounters, where Trump embraced the authoritarian Saudi monarchy and said he had been wowed by Saudi King Salman’s wisdom.

In Brussels, Trump sat in a morning meeting with top E.U. leaders, where one emerged to say there were deep differences between them about whether the West can work with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The president lunched with French President Emmanuel Macron, where the two leaders shook hands in a tense, white-knuckled embrace. And he sped across Brussels to NATO, where British Prime Minister Theresa May, the leader of Washington’s closest ally, buttonholed him about her anger over intelligence leaks following Monday’s terrorist attack in Manchester.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, traveling with the president, downplayed the absence of Trump’s formal commitment to security guarantees during the speech, saying that there was no question of U.S. support for NATO and all of the obligations that are entailed in membership.

“Having to reaffirm something by the very nature of being here and speaking at a ceremony about it is almost laughable,” Spicer said after the speech.

Leaders offered modest applause at the end of a speech that he began by asking for a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims of Monday’s terrorist attack in Manchester, England, that killed 22 and wounded many more.

Addressing the British, Trump said, “May all the nations here grieve with you and stand with you.” The attack, he said, “demonstrates the depths of the evil we face with terrorism.”

Trump did not refer to British prime minister’s irritation, expressed earlier in the day, over what officials in England have said was the leak to U.S. news media of intelligence information that Britain gathered in the investigation of the Manchester case and shared with the United States.

“We have strong relations with the United States, our closest partner,” May told reporters as she entered NATO’s $1.2 billion new headquarters for the ceremony, “and that is, of course, built on trust. Part of that is knowing intelligence can be shared confidently, and I will make clear to President Trump that intelligence shared with law enforcement agencies must be secure.”

May talked with Trump about the issue inside the closed meetings, a senior British government official said.

[Trump calls for investigation of U.S. leaks in Manchester bomb probe ]

Trump is already under fire at home for violating intelligence agreements, following a Washington Post report that he revealed sensitive information on the Islamic State, obtained from Israel, to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador to Washington. 

In a presidential statement issued while Trump was at the ceremony, he called the Manchester leaks “deeply troubling,” vowed to “get to the bottom” of them and called for a full investigation by U.S. agencies, one that could end with prosecutions, he said.

Trump’s speech likely disappointed leaders who had hoped for a public commitment from the U.S. president to NATO’s security guarantees, which he called into question during his presidential campaign last year when he said he would check a country’s defense spending before coming to its aid. Trump’s Cabinet officials have made the direct pledge in recent months, but top officials of other NATO allies said that Trump’s personal guarantee would eliminate any lingering doubts.

In the speech, Trump gave no specific commitment to Article 5, the collective security provision that has been invoked only once — following the September 2001 attacks. “Our NATO allies responded swiftly and successfully, invoking for the first time the Article 5 commitment,” Trump recalled.

A senior administration official said that no one should “read into” Trump’s remarks any lack of U.S. commitment to the alliance’s collective defense obligations.

“The intent was to deliver a direct message, which he’s done before,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to expand on Trump’s remarks. “He’s been direct with them in rallies in speeches. He wanted to give the same message that he’s been giving when NATO leaders are present or are not present. It’s the same message he gave on the campaign trail, it’s the same message he gives to the American people, and it’s the same message he gives to leaders one on one.”

Trump’s “confrontational approach has yielded results so far,” the official said. “A lot more countries have stepped up and said we’re going to meet this target sooner.”

Trump began his day in Brussels at a meeting with European Union leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker.

Speaking after the half-hour session, Tusk, president of the European Council, said pointedly that the West needs to concentrate on “values, not just interests.”

“Values and principles first, this is what we — Europe and America — should be saying,” Tusk told reporters. Tusk, who has expressed concern before about the new U.S. administration, said he and Trump agreed on counterterrorism, but did not see eye to eye on a number of other issues, including climate change, trade and Russia.

After the E.U. meeting, Trump had a private lunch with Macron at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, where he is staying while in Brussels. Trump greeted the new French president at the door with a handshake and a hearty,“ How are you?” as Macron stepped out of his black limousine. France has urged Trump not to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, a decision he has hinted at but that the administration says has not yet been made.

[Video: Trump scolds NATO leaders at Brussels ceremony]

On this fourth and penultimate stop on Trump’s nine-day trip, the first overseas travel of his presidency, Trump did not appear to find the near adulation he experienced from Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, and from the Israeli government in Jerusalem.

At those stops, they agreed with Trump’s call to concentrate on counterterrorism and economic growth, with no discussion, at least in public, about human and civil rights concerns that had dogged U.S.-Middle East relationships under President Barack Obama.

NATO’s leaders used the excuse of the vast new headquarters to invite the former real estate mogul for a ribbon-cutting, even though construction on the site — a former military airfield — is not yet finished. Beyond its official purpose, however, the meeting was designed to allow Trump and NATO to take the measure of each other.

Some allies feel the golden word of the president would finalize the message to Russia and others across the NATO border. It still could come up in their private conversations over dinner.

“That would be important if the president personally and explicitly states it,” said Latvian Foreign Ministry State Secretary Andrejs Pildegovics, who was in Brussels for the meeting. “At the end of the day, all important decisions are made by the president. And usually the president has a few options on the table.”

NATO has officially pledged that all members will reach the goal of spending at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted Thursday morning that overall spending among members has been up for two years in a row, and he said he anticipated that increases would now speed up as the alliance addresses the terrorist threat.

He said NATO was ready to join the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State — to which all individual members already belong — although he said NATO would not have a combat role on the ground in Iraq and Syria. Among increased contributions to counterterrorism, he said the alliance would step up support of NATO AWACS planes and intelligence-sharing, and provide refueling capabilities. 

“We will now establish a new intelligence fusion cell at the headquarters addressing terrorism, including foreign fights.

“And we will also appoint a special coordinator for NATO’s efforts fighting terrorism,” Stoltenberg said. He called it a “strong political message,” as well as a practical one.

Stoltenberg also said NATO would consider increasing its noncombat troop presence in Afghanistan. The administration is currently reviewing its own presence there, including adding up to 5,000 troops to the nearly 10,000 already on the ground and expanding their role assisting Afghan government forces fighting both the Taliban and a local Islamic State presence.

A federal appeals court on Thursday left in place the freeze on President Trump’s revised entry ban, handing the administration another legal setback in its efforts to block the issuance of new visas to citizens of six Muslim majority countries.

The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit means the Trump administration still cannot enforce its travel order that the government says is urgently needed for national security.

In its 10 to 3 decision, the Richmond-based court said the president’s broad immigration power to deny entry into the U.S. is not absolute and sided with challengers, finding that the travel ban “in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.”

The president’s authority, the court said, “cannot go unchecked when, as here, the president wields it through an executive edict that stands to cause irreparable harm to individuals across this nation,” according to the majority opinion written by Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory, and joined in part by nine other judges.

The 4th Circuit declined to lift an order from a Maryland federal judge, who ruled against the travel ban in March and sided with opponents who said the ban violates the Constitution by intentionally discriminating against Muslims. The ruling leaves the injunction in place and means citizens from Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Libya can continue entering the United States.

Protesters hold signs and march outside the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., in advance of the hearing earlier this month on the Trump administration’s travel ban. (Steve Helber/AP)

[Judges press Trump’s lawyers in travel ban case on campaign statements]

Even if the appeals court had sided with the Trump administration, the president’s order would have remained on hold because of a separate opinion from a federal judge in Hawaii. To put the ban in motion, the Justice Department would also have had to win at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which heard oral arguments on May 15 in the government’s appeal of the Hawaii decision.

Federal immigration law gives the president broad immigration powers and government lawyers urged the court to defer to the president and not second guess his judgment.

But the ruling from the 4th Circuit was the latest in a series of defeats for the administration. President Trump rewrote the entry ban after the 9th Circuit in February refused to lift an earlier injunction.

The revised version would temporarily suspend the U.S. refugee program and halt for 90 days the issuance of new visas to travelers from the six countries while the administration reviews its screening process.

The next step for the Trump administration would be to ask the Supreme Court to stay the 4th Circuit’s decision. Such a request usually requires showing that the government would suffer irreparable harm if the lower court decision was allowed to stand. The passage of time since the executive order was first issued might make that difficult.

A challenge to the 4th Circuit decision would go to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who receives emergency petitions from that court, and then be referred to the rest of the justices. It would take five votes to stay the decision.

The administration might also wait until it receives a ruling from a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Those judges are considering a ruling from a judge in Hawaii who put the travel ban on hold. The full 9th Circuit upheld a freeze on Trump’s previous executive order.

[9th Circuit rules 3 to 0 against Trump on first version of travel ban]

The challenge in Maryland was brought by organizations and individuals, including a Muslim in the United States whose relative would be affected by the ban.

In its 79-page opinion, the court said challengers had shown real harm that would come from delaying or disrupting pending visa applications, in addition to the “psychological harm that flows from confronting official action preferring or disfavoring a particular religion.”

During oral arguments this month, many of the 4th Circuit judges expressed doubts about the viability of the president’s order. They questioned whether there was a link between barring of citizens from the six countries identified by the administration and ensuring U.S. security.

In its opinion Thursday, the court said, “plaintiffs point to ample evidence that national security is not the true reason” for the order, pointing to the president’s “numerous campaign statements expressing animus towards the Islamic faith” and his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

The majority opinion recounts in detail then-candidate Trump’s statement on his campaign website, and quotes from his tweets, television interviews and comments made by his advisers.

The establishment clause of the First Amendment specifically prohibits the government from denigrating a particular religion.

Karen Tumlin, legal director at the National Immigration Law Center, one of the lawyers on the cases said Thursday that the court had concluded that this executive order has to be blocked because it “steps over the constitutional line in a way that is out of step with our constitutional values of religious tolerance.”

All of the judges in the majority were placed on the court by Democratic presidents and the three dissenting judges — Paul V. Niemyer, Dennis W. Shedd and G. Steven Agee — were all nominated to the bench by Republican presidents.

Niemeyer called the decision unprecedented and unworkable. “The majority looks past the face of the order’s statements on national security and immigration, which it concedes are neutral in terms of religion, and considers campaign statements made by candidate Trump to conclude that the order denigrates Islam, in violation of the Establishment Clause,” he wrote. He said that approach plainly violates Supreme Court precedent, misapplies the Constitutional’s prohibition on establishing religion and “adopts a new rule of law that uses campaign statements to recast the plain, unambiguous, and religiously neutral text of an executive order.”

He said the majority decision would not withstand Supreme Court review.

“The Supreme Court surely will shudder at the majority’s adoption of this new rule that has no limits or bounds — one that transforms the majority’s criticisms of a candidate’s various campaign statements into a constitutional violation,” wrote Niemeyer, whose opinion was joined by the other dissenting judges.

Read more:

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