Cairo: A police officer and a conscript were killed after armed attackers opened fire on their patrol car, Egypt’s interior ministry announced on Sunday, the latest deadly assault against the country’s security forces.
The deaths come as militants have stepped up their attacks against security forces since the army ousted Islamist president Mohammad Mursi in July, and just two days after a police officer was killed in a bomb blast in Cairo.
A statement from the ministry said those killed were patrolling the road between Cairo and Suez.
On Saturday, a militant group called Ajnad Misr, or “Egypt’s Soldiers,” claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed a police officer late Friday in Cairo. The group said it is waging a campaign of retribution for the killing and detentions of protesters and young Egyptians.
In a video posted on militant websites last week, the group detailed eight of its operations since November last year that included firing on and hurling small bombs at policemen and checkpoints.
It also claimed responsibility for three blasts earlier this month outside Cairo University that killed a police general and injured seven people. But the deadliest attacks have been claimed by Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, a jihadist group inspired by Al Qaida.
Official figures show that more than 500 people — mostly policemen and soldiers — have been killed in bombing and shooting assaults by militants since July.
Most militant attacks have been in the restive Sinai Peninsula, but in recent months brazen attacks have also been launched farther afield in the Nile Delta and in the capital.
At the same time, more than 15,000 Islamists, mostly from Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, have been jailed, while hundreds have been sentenced to death.
The authorities blame the Brotherhood for the attacks and have blacklisted it as a “terrorist organisation”.
