24 Egyptian policemen killed in Sinai peninsula
Sinai has seen almost daily militant attacks in recent weeks, including this car bomb in El Arish in July.Egyptian security officials say suspected militants ambushed two police minibuses in northern Sinai Monday, killing 24 policemen.
The police were travelling in two buses which came under attack from armed men close to the town of Rafah on the Gaza border, security forces said.
A number of police were also reported to have been injured in the blast.
The military recently intensified a crackdown against militants in Sinai, where attacks have surged since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Deployments in Sinai are subject to the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
In Monday\’s incident, security sources said four armed men had stopped the police buses and forced the passengers to get out before shooting them.
Egyptian police say at least 35 detained protesters have been killed while attempting to escape from a prison convoy, but the Muslim Brotherhood has alleged that their supporters were killed in cold blood and called for an international inquiry into the incident.
There were conflicting reports of how Sunday\’s deaths occurred. The Egyptian Interior Ministry said the prisoners had taken an officer hostage and died after suffocating to death after police fired tear gas.
On Sunday, Anti-Coup protesters broke a military curfew to march through Cairo, as the latest violence added to the rising death toll in days of unrest.
On Saturday alone, clashes between Morsi supporters and police killed 79 people, according to a government tally released on Sunday and carried by MENA, raising the death toll for four days of unrest across the country to over 800 people killed.
About 70 police officers were killed in clashes with protesters or retaliatory attacks during the same period, according to the interior ministry.
Source: Agencies
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