Egyptian army officers killed in Cairo shootout

DPA

Cairo

An Egyptian Army brigadier, a colonel and six gunmen were killed yesterday in a shootout north of Cairo, security officials said.

The gun battle erupted when a joint army and police force raided a hideout of insurgents from the jihadist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the Interior Ministry said.

“A fierce confrontation lasted for several hours, with firearms, explosive devices and car bombs being used,” the ministry said, adding that a police captain was wounded and eight suspected Islamist militants were arrested in the swoop.

The cell was responsible for two recent gun attacks that killed seven soldiers, as well as a deadly bomb attack on Cairo police headquarters in January, the ministry said.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, based in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on security personnel, including a failed attempt on the life of Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim in Cairo in November.

The army-backed government launched a crackdown on Islamists in July after the military toppled president Mohamed Mursi, a senior leader in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Activists say almost 3,000 people have been killed in political violence and terrorist attacks since then, including more than 300 members of the security forces.

Also yesterday, an Egyptian court upheld an earlier ruling sentencing 26 Islamists to death on charges of setting up a terrorist group to attack ships in the Suez Canal.

The defendants were also convicted of manufacturing rockets, planning to attack security facilities and harming national unity by targeting minority Christians.

All the defendants were tried in absentia before the Criminal Court in Cairo.

The court announced the ruling after the sentences had been sent for approval by Egypt’s top Islamic official, the mufti. The mufti’s advisory opinion is a routine procedure for death penalties in predominantly Muslim Egypt.

A defence lawyer for a number of the accused wrote on Twitter that four of the defendants were in custody but were not brought to the hearing, and lawyers were not allowed to enter either.

According to lawyer Ahmed Helmy, the defendants were arrested in 2009 on what he described as the “fabricated and hopeless” charges and a court ordered their release in 2010. Lawyers were not aware of how the case had come before the courts again, he wrote.

Helmy told said that the jailed defendants would be entitled to a rehearing in their presence before the same judges, saying that he saw the case as a “trial balloon.”

Meanwhile a student was killed and at least five injured during demonstrations by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in many parts of Egypt, the Health Ministry said.

Brotherhood accounts on social media published pictures of what they said was a 14-year-old boy killed by the police as they broke up a demonstration in Beni Suef, south of Cairo.

There were also clashes as police broke up protests at Cairo and Al-Azhar universities in the capital.

An Islamist alliance had called for a “revolutionary wave” beginning yesterday and continuing until the end of the month.

The government has accused the Muslim Brotherhood of instigating violence and labelled it a terrorist organisation. The Brotherhood has repeatedly denied any links to violence and accused the government of oppression.