Tourist stabbed in Egypt near death

Four militants killed

PRAGUE, July 26, (Agencies): A Czech stabbed in an Egyptian holiday resort earlier this month is on the verge of death after suffering multiple organ failure, the Czech Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

The woman was among the victims of an Egyptian man who fatally stabbed two Germans and wounded four other tourists at the Hurghada resort on the Red Sea on July 14.

It was the first significant attack on foreign visitors since a similar assault on the same resort more than a year ago, and came as Egypt struggles to revive a tourism industry hurt by security threats and years of political upheaval.

The condition of the woman, who authorities have not identified, deteriorated sharply earlier this week, preventing her transfer home from a Cairo hospital.

She remains on life support, though Egyptian doctors concluded after a CT scan on Wednesday that she was effectively brain-dead, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, Egyptian police shot dead four militants and arrested two others accused of involvement in the mid-July killing of five policemen, the interior ministry said Wednesday.

Egypt’s security forces have been the target of repeated attacks by jihadist groups since the army overthrew former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Police had been tracking militants suspected of opening fire on a police car south of Cairo on July 14, leaving a non-commissioned officer, three conscripts and a police employee dead.

On Wednesday, the ministry said police had simultaneously approached suspects at two different hideouts in the capital.

One group of suspects, in western

Continued from Page 1 Cairo’s 6th of October district, opened fire as police approached. Four of the militants were killed in the ensuing gunfight, it said.

In Faisal neighbourhood, also in western Cairo, police arrested two militants, it added.

The ministry did not say when the operations had taken place.

Egypt has been fighting an insurgency by an Islamic State group affiliate based in North Sinai province, where hundreds of soldiers and policemen have been killed since Morsi’s ouster.

At the same time, new groups have attacked security forces in other parts of the country, including the Hasam group -- an extremist movement the government says is linked to Morsi’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.