CAIRO, Nov 1: Egypt refused on Monday to react to demands over two Coptic women rumoured to have converted to Islam made by an Al Qaeda group in Iraq that claimed the Sunday hostage-taking in a Baghdad church.

The SITE monitoring group said the “Islamic State of Iraq”, an Al Qaeda branch which claimed the attack, gave Egypts Coptic Church 48 hours to release the two women or it would attack Christians across the region.

“Egypt categorically rejects having its name or affairs pushed into such criminal acts,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. It also “strongly condemned” the attack on the church.

Two priests were among the hostages killed in the raid on a Baghdad cathedral on Sunday.

In an audiotape on Site's website, a man who said the Islamic State of Iraq's suicide brigade was behind the kidnapping warned that the region's Christians would be targeted if the two women were not released.

The women, Camilia Shehata and Wafa Constantine, are the wives of Coptic priests about whom Islamists claim they had been forcibly detained by the Coptic Church after they had willingly converted to Islam.

“If you turn your churches into a prison for Muslim women, we will make them graveyards for you,” he said.

“It won't stop just with killing the hostages, but you will open on the sons of your religion a door you do not wish to be opened,” he continued.

“Not just in Iraq, but also in Egypt and Sham (Syria alone, or Syria, Lebanon and historic Palestine), and all the countries of the region,” the warning reads.

The tape also addresses the Vatican, which convened a two-week synod of Middle East Catholic bishops last month.

“We say to the Vatican, as you met days ago with the Christians of the Middle East, regardless of their sect, to support them, now pressure them to release our captive sisters, or killing will reach all of you and (Coptic Pope) Shenouda will bring destruction to all the Christians of the region.”

Shehata disappeared for a few days in July, setting off Coptic protests.

Police found her and escorted her back home, triggering protests by Islamists who said the church was detaining her after she converted to Islam.

Footage of a woman claiming to be Shehata after converting to Islam surfaced on the Internet, firing up the protests. The Coptic Church says she was not the woman in the footage.

Wafa Constantine also went missing, in 2004, reportedly after her husband refused to give her a divorce. She was temporarily sequestered at a convent as reports of her conversion were circulated.

The two cases threatened the fragile sectarian balance of the country, where Copts make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 80-million population and have been the target of sectarian attacks.

Nagib Gibrail, a Coptic activist and lawyer, said: “This is the first time we get threats from outside Egypt. This reflects the sequence of crises we are going through.”

A Catholic Church spokesman in Egypt said they were told by police that it would reinforce security around churches. But a senior police official said no reinforcements were planned because there was already enough security.—AFP