Militants ambush 25 policemen,
Muslim Brotherhood leader captured, will go on trial in death of protesters
CAIRO— Underscoring the growing anger in Egypt over Islamist president Mohammed Morsi’s ouster, suspected Islamic militants ambushed two minibuses carrying off-duty police officers in the Sinai Peninsula, forcing the men to lie on the sand and shooting 25 of them dead.
“They were marked in advance by the attackers,” said Ashraf Abdullah, who heads the victims’ police branch. He said the assailants checked the IDs of the men, who were not in uniform, to ensure they were police before opening fire.
The brazen daylight attack raised fears that the strategic desert region bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip could be plunged into a full-fledged insurgency.
In a separate development early on Tuesday, police detained the supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Morsi hails, according to security officials and state television. They said Mohammed Badie was captured in an apartment in the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City. That’s where Morsi’s supporters held a six-week sit-in protest that was cleared by security forces last Wednesday.
Badie and his powerful deputy Khairat el-Shater, who is in custody, go on trial later this month for their alleged role in the killing of eight protesters outside the Brotherhood’s Cairo headquarters in June. His arrest is a serious blow to the group at a time when authorities are cracking down on its leaders and midranking officials, detaining scores of them across the country.
The 25 slain police officers were given a funeral with full military honours presided over by the interior minister and the army’s chief of staff. Interim President Adly Mansour declared a nationwide state of mourning.
Despite the violence, Cairo, a bustling city of 18 million people, began to regain a sense of normalcy, although the capital remained under a state of emergency and a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Daytime traffic was back to its normal congested levels and stores were open. A handful of protests erupted in various parts of the city, but they were small and led to no violence. Last week, the military raided two protest camps of Morsi’s supporters in Cairo, killing hundreds of people and triggering a wave of violence that has left at least 1,000 people dead.
The Sinai Peninsula has long been wracked by violence by Al Qaeda-linked fighters, and by tribesmen who have used
European Union foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss how to force Egypt’s army-backed government into seeking a peaceful compromise
the area for smuggling and other criminal activity. However, Islamic militancy has been on the rise in the area, with almost daily attacks targeting security forces since Morsi’s ouster.
Monday’s attack targeting the police officers took place near the border town of Rafah in northern Sinai. A few hours later, militants shot to death a senior police officer as he stood guard outside a bank in el-Arish, another city in the largely lawless area, security officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.
The attacks came a day after security forces killed 36 detainees during a riot on a prison-bound truck convoy north of Cairo. On Monday, the government ordered an inquiry into the deaths, which it blamed on armed men allegedly trying to help the 600 Muslim Brotherhood detainees escape.
European Union foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss how to force Egypt’s armybacked government into seeking a peaceful compromise, Reuters reported. Options likely to be discussed include cutbacks in Europe’s $6.7-billion package of grants and loans promised last year, as well as a possible arms embargo, said EU envoy Bernardino Leon.
Saudi Arabia has pledged to fill any financial gaps left by Western countries.