(Updates with death toll at 3, background)
ISMAILIA, Egypt, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Three Egyptian policemen
died on Saturday when gunmen fired on their car in the northern
Sinai Peninsula city of al-Arish before escaping, security
sources said.
Disorder has spread in Sinai since autocrat Hosni Mubarak
was ousted in a popular uprising last year, with Islamist
militants stepping up attacks on security forces and the Israeli
border. Egypt’s new elected Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi,
has pledged to restore security in the poor, desert region.
A police source said Saturday’s attackers were probably
militants who Egyptian forces, in the biggest security crackdown
Sinai has seen in decades, have been hunting since the ambush
killing of 16 border guards on Aug. 5.
Two policemen died at the scene of the attack on the suburbs
of al-Arish, the administrative centre of North Sinai, while one
of the other two injured died at the hospital later after the
attack, medical and security sources said.
The Aug. 5 attack – the deadliest in Sinai since Egypt’s
1973 war with Israel – prompted the government to send in
hundreds of troops backed by tanks, armoured vehicles and
helicopters in a joint operation with police to raid militant
hideouts, arrest suspects and seize weapons.
But efforts to impose central authority in the lawless
desert region are complicated by the indigenous Bedouin
population’s ingrained hostility to the government in Cairo.
Armed men seized a military vehicle last month, ejected an
officer and a soldier and then drove into the desert.
(Reporting By Yousri Mohamed; Writing by Tamim Elyan; Editing
by Mark Heinrich)
