A policeman inspects the wreckage of a burnt car at the site of a bomb explosion which killed three policemen in Al Tur, in the southern part of Sinai peninsula, yesterday.
CAIRO: Suspected militants killed six Egyptian soldiers near the Suez Canal and fired rocket-propelled grenades at a state satellite station in Cairo yesterday, suggesting an Islamist insurgency was gathering pace three months after an army takeover.
Dozens of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were killed in clashes with security forces and political opponents on Sunday. The death toll from that day’s violence across the country rose to 53, state media said, with 271 people wounded.
The Brotherhood denies the military’s charges that it incites violence and says it has nothing to do with militant activity, but further confrontations may shake Egypt this week, with Mursi’s supporters calling for further protests this week.
The Brotherhood accused the army of staging a coup and working with security forces to eliminate the group through violence and arrests, allegations the military denies.
Sinai-based militants have stepped up attacks on the security forces since the army takeover. Two people were wounded in the attack on the state-owned satellite station while medical sources said three were killed and 48 injured in a blast near a state security building in South Sinai.
“Unidentified people opened fire on a satellite receiver station in the neighbourhood of Maadi in Cairo,” the Ministry of Interior said. Security sources said assailants fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the site.
Security sources said gunmen opened fire on the soldiers in Ismailia while they were sitting in a car at a checkpoint near the city on the Suez Canal.
Meanwhile, Army chief General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who has promised a political roadmap that would lead Egypt to free and fair elections, said in the interview that Egypt’s interests differed from those of the Brotherhood. “I told Mursi in February you failed and your project is finished,” Al Masry Al Youm quoted Sisi as saying.
Reuters
