* Islamist militants kill 24 Egyptian police in Sinai
* At least 36 prisoners die in disputed circumstances
* EU diplomats meet to review options
* Saudi Arabia cautions West not to pressure Cairo
By Alistair Lyon and Asma Alsharif
CAIRO, Aug 19 (Reuters) – Suspected Islamist militants
killed at least 24 Egyptian policemen on Monday in the Sinai
peninsula, where attacks on security forces have multiplied
since the army overthrew President Mohamed Mursi on July 3.
Three policemen were also wounded in the grenade and
machinegun attack near the north Sinai town of Rafah on the
border with Israel, medical and security sources said.
The attack underlined the challenges facing Egypt’s new
rulers, locked in a struggle with Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood in
which at least 850 people have been killed since the security
forces opened fire at pro-Mursi protest camps last week.
The authorities portray their campaign as a fight against
terrorism. The Brotherhood renounced violence decades ago and
denies any links with armed militants, including those in Sinai
who gained strength since autocrat Hosni Mubarak fell in 2011.
Mounting insecurity in Sinai also worries the United States
because the area lies next to Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza
Strip, as well as the Suez Canal.
At least 36 Islamists died in government custody on Sunday,
in an incident that the Brotherhood described as “murder” and
the authorities said was a thwarted jailbreak.
“The murders show the violations and abuses that political
detainees who oppose the July 3 coup get subjected to,” said the
Brotherhood.
The Interior Ministry said 36 Brotherhood detainees had been
suffocated by tear gas during an attempted prison breakout near
Cairo. A legal source said 38 men had died from asphyxiation in
the back of a crammed police van.
Egypt’s descent into the bloodiest internal conflict in its
modern history is causing global jitters, but no consensus on
how to respond has emerged in the West or the Arab world.
European Union diplomats were due to meet in Brussels to
review how best to leverage some 5 billion euros ($6.7 billion)
of promised grants and loans, looking to apply pressure on
Cairo’s army-backed government to find a compromise.
DISCORD OVER AID
A senior EU official who asked not to be identified said the
United States, Europe and Gulf Arab states had only limited
influence on the generals now calling the shots in Egypt.
The United States, an ally of Egypt since it made peace with
Israel in 1979, has postponed delivery of four F-16 fighters and
scrapped a joint military exercise, but has not halted its $1.55
billion in annual aid, spent mostly on U.S.-made arms supplies.
However, Republican and Democrat U.S. lawmakers, some of
them reversing the stances they had espoused before last week’s
crackdown in Egypt, said on Sunday the aid should be suspended.
“For us to sit by and watch this happen is a violation of
everything that we stood for,” said Senator John McCain, a
former Republican presidential nominee.
Saudi Arabia, another U.S. ally, urged Washington and Europe
not to penalise Cairo for its drive to crush the Muslim
Brotherhood, whose political ambitions arouse mistrust in
several Gulf Arab states, with the exception of Qatar.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy sought to pre-empt any
attempt to use aid flows as a lever by saying he would look at
all such assistance to see “what aid is being used to pressure
Egypt and whether this aid has good intentions and credibility”.
Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters have been arrested to try
to end weeks of protests, but the group has refused to yield,
staging rallies in Cairo and Alexandria on Sunday.
The prime minister has proposed disbanding the 85-year-old
Brotherhood, which has won all of the five votes held in Egypt
since the popular revolt that toppled Mubarak in 2011.
In his first public comments since hundreds of people were
killed when security forces cleared two pro-Mursi camps in Cairo
on Wednesday, army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said he would not
“stand by silently watching the destruction of the country”.
(Reporting by Cairo bureau; Editing by Peter Graff)
