Following New Year's suicide bombing at a church in Egypt, Amin Gemayel urges Middle East leaders to give Christian communities a larger political role.

Extremist groups are waging a "genocide" against Christians in the Middle East, a former Lebanese president said Monday after a New Year's suicide bombing of a church in Egypt killed 21 people.

Amin Gemayel, a Christian who served a six-year term as president in the 1980s, cited the attack in Egypt and recent violence in Iraq as he urged leaders to give Christian communities a larger political role.

"Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians," said Gemayel, who leads Lebanon's right-wing Christian Phalange party.

"What is happening to Christians is a genocide," he said.

Lebanon, which experienced a ruinous 15-year civil war, in part between Muslims and Christians, that left about 150,000 dead, is deeply divided along sectarian lines. Christians make up about 40 per cent of Lebanon's 4 million people and the country is the only Arab nation with a Christian head of state.

The Phalange party, which was founded in 1936 by Gemayel's father, Pierre, fought heavily on the Christian side during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. Militias linked to the party carried out the notorious massacres of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in 1982.

AP