Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood shout slogans during a protest in front of Al Istkama mosque at Giza Square, south of Cairo, yesterday.
CAIRO: Militants killed 25 policemen yesterday in the deadliest attack of its kind in years.
The assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at two buses carrying police in the Sinai Peninsula, security sources said, just hours after 37 Brotherhood prisoners died in police custody.
The bloodshed came after Egypt’s military chief vowed a “forceful” response to violence roiling the Arab world’s most populous nation.
The Sinai attack raised fears of a return to the wave of deadly Islamist violence that swept the country in the 1990s.
Egypt is struggling to put a lid on a deep political crisis and violence that has killed almost 900 people in days of clashes between Islamist protesters and security forces across the country.
Mursi loyalists vowed new demonstrations yesterday, although a day earlier they had cancelled some marches citing security concerns.
The Interior Ministry said 25 policeman were killed and two injured in the Sinai attack, which it blamed on “armed terrorist groups”.
A border official said afterwards that the Rafah crossing with the Palestinian Gaza Strip, near where the attack occurred, would be closed.
Security sources said another policemen was killed in the northern city of El Arish, bringing to at least 75 the number of security force members killed in the Sinai since the army threw out Mursi.
The security situation in the Sinai has deteriorated sharply in the past weeks, with near daily attacks by militants targeting police and military installations.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said yesterday in Sudan that his country was on the “right path”.
According to an AFP tally, more than 1,000 people have been killed since the mass demonstrations calling for Mursi to resign erupted at the end of June. AFP
