Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
54 Egypt police reported slain in militants’ ambush
CAIRO — At least 54 policemen, including 20 officers and 34 conscripts, were killed when a raid on a militant hideout southwest of Cairo was ambushed, officials said Saturday. The ensuing firefight was one of the deadliest for Egyptian security forces in recent years.
Two police officials said the exchange of fire began late Friday in the al-Wahat al-Bahriya area in Giza province, about 84 miles southwest of Cairo.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The firefight began when security forces acting on intelligence moved against a militant hideout in the area. Backed by armored personnel carriers and led by senior counterterrorism officers, the police contingent drew gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, according to the officials.
The officials said what happened next is not clear, but added that the force likely ran out of ammunition and that the militants captured several policemen and later killed them.
The officials said the police force appeared to have fallen into a carefully planned ambush set up by the militants. The death toll could increase, they added.
Those killed included two police brigadier-generals, a colonel and 10 lieutenant colonels.
Egypt’s Interior Ministry, which is in charge of police, announced a much lower death toll, saying in a statement read over state
television that 16 were killed in the shootout. It added that 15 militants were killed or injured, later releasing photos of some of them.
The last time Egypt’s security forces suffered such a heavy loss of life was in July 2015 when militants from the extremist Islamic State group carried out a series of coordinated attacks, including suicide bombings, against army and police positions in the Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 50. However, the army said only 17 soldiers and over 100 militants were killed.
An official statement issued Saturday said Friday’s incident would be investigated, suggesting that the heavy death toll may have been partially caused by incompetence, intelligence failures or lack of coordination. The officials said prosecutors will look into whether the police’s counterterrorism agents failed to inform the military of the operation or include them.
Two audio recordings purportedly by policemen who took part in the operation circulated online late Friday. One policeman, apparently using a two-way radio, was heard in the nearly two-minute recording pleading for help from a higher-ranking officer.
“We are the only ones injured, sir,” the policeman said. “We were 10 but three were killed. After their injury, they bled to death, sir.”
“They took all the weapons and ammunition,” he added, “We are now at the foot of a mountain.”
The second recording was purportedly by a policeman warning others. “I can’t identify any direction. Only planes can see us. Take care, everyone,” he was heard saying, adding that militants were pursuing them.
The authenticity of the recordings could not be immediately verified.
The heavy loss of life will likely lead to the restructuring and streamlining of the country’s counterterrorism effort, the officials said, with better coordination between the police, military and security agencies high on the list of objectives.
It’s also likely to be cited by government critics as a vindication of their longheld argument that suppressing freedoms, jailing opponents and cracking down on civil society does not, as the pro-government media insist, help in the war against terror.
The United States condemned the attack in a statement issued by State Department, offering “profound condolences to the families of the deceased and the government and people of Egypt … at this difficult time.”
No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The militants, according to local media reports, belonged to Hasm, which Egypt’s security forces claimed to be the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement led by Mohamed Morsi that is now outlawed. But analysts say there is no conclusive evidence that Hasm is officially linked to the Brotherhood, though some Hasm
members are said to be Brotherhood members who now favor violent means to oppose the government.
The violence was a stark indication of a core challenge facing the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a vital American ally in the Middle East. Ever since he led a military coup to oust the elected Islamist government of Morsi four years ago, Sissi has portrayed himself as a linchpin in the fight against terrorism. In the name of combating the Islamist militancy, critics say he has suppressed political and social freedoms, and jailed thousands of Islamists. Egypt is one of the world’s largest recipients of American military aid, a large portion of it designated to fight terrorism.
Yet the militancy is growing — and spreading. In the past year, hundreds of Egyptian security force members have been killed combating an Islamic State affiliate based in the northern Sinai Peninsula whose cells have also targeted minority Christian communities and bombed churches in Cairo, Alexandria and other areas. In recent months, the Hasm Movement also has targeted security officials and judges, adding a deadly new dimension to the security threats facing the country. The insurgency has continued even as Egypt’s military and police forces claim to have killed thousands of suspected terrorists.
With the Islamic State eviscerated in Iraq and Syria, regional security officials and analysts say the group’s affiliates are asserting themselves and seeking to carve out potential new safe havens for its fighters. Egypt and other parts of North Africa are among the key areas of the world where the group has made or is seeking to make inroads.
Saturday’s incident comes a few days after militants staged a brazen daylight attack in the heart of el-Arish, the largest city in the Sinai Peninsula, attacking a church and a nearby bank and reportedly making away with about $1 million. Seven were killed in the Monday attack.
The country has been under a state of emergency since April, after a spate of suicide bombings targeting minority Christians that have killed more than a 100 since December. The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State.
Egypt blamed the attacks on the Christians on militant cells trained and armed in neighboring Libya, where mostly Islamist militias, including extremist groups such as the Islamic State, control territory or maintain a foothold in the vast, oil-rich nation. In response, Egypt has stepped up security along its desert border with Libya, where it supports an eastern-based army general fighting militant groups.
In July 2014, gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked a border guard post in Egypt’s western desert in a brazen assault that killed 21 troops deployed close to the Libyan border.