Security personnel killed in militant attack near Cairo

By Mohamed Mahmoud

CAIRO

Three military personnel, including two retired army officers, were killed Wednesday in a militant attack near capital Cairo, the Egyptian army said in a statement.

According to the statement, gunmen opened fire on a tollbooth operated by an army-affiliated company in Al-Ayat city on the capital’s outskirts.

The attack, the same statement read, “led to the martyrdom of two retired officers and one soldier”.

In April, President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency after twin attacks on two churches -- responsibility for which was later claimed by the Daesh terrorist group -- left 45 people dead.

In late June, Egypt’s cabinet approved the extension of the countrywide state of emergency for an additional three months.

In a related development, an Egyptian police officer was killed on Wednesday by unidentified assailants in the northern Sinai Peninsula, according to local police sources.

“A cop was shot dead by masked men while returning home to the city of Al-Arish,” North Sinai police said in a statement.

No group has claimed responsibility for either of the Wednesday attacks.

The Sinai incident was the second such attack on police in Al-Arish within the last 48 hours.

On Tuesday, one police conscript was killed and 10 others injured when their armored vehicle struck a roadside bomb on the city’s southern outskirts.

Sinai has remained the epicenter of a deadly militant insurgency since when Mohamed Morsi -- Egypt’s first freely-elected president and a Muslim Brotherhood leader -- was ousted in a military coup.

Since then, hundreds of Egyptian security personnel have been killed in militant attacks across the volatile peninsula.

The Egyptian authorities, for their part, say they are battling the Sinai ("Province of Sinai") group, which is alleged to have links with Daesh.