3 police killed in Cairo attack, gas pipeline targeted in Arish

Three policemen were shot dead near Cairo’s Al-Azhar University in the early hours of Tuesday morning, followed shortly by the bombing of a gas pipeline in the city of Arish.

The three policemen were reportedly shot by unidentified assailants while manning a security checkpoint in Cairo’s eastern district of Nasr City, near the dormitories of Al-Azhar University.

Eight conscripts and one officer were wounded in the attack, which state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported was carried out by three men in a car that sped off after the shooting.

Following the attack, security measures were stepped up around Al-Azhar’s dormitories, as students were frisked and had their bags searched at the gates.

The Vice President of Al-Azhar University, Ibrahim Hodhod, issued media statements saying that all campuses and dormitories nationwide would be closed from May 22 — following exams — due to security concerns. The university and its campuses are scheduled to reopen at the beginning of June.

The Al-Azhar University dormitories in Nasr City have been the site of several clashes between riot police forces and student supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. Several students and policemen have been killed in violence around these dormitories, and several hundred students arrested in protests and marches launched from them.

Al-Azhar University’s administration has repeatedly called for police forces to be deployed within university campuses and dormitories to quell student protests.

A few hours after the shooting in Cairo, a natural gas pipeline was bombed in Arish City, located in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. No casualties were reported in the explosion, which is the 22nd such incident since 2011.

This damaged pipeline fuels two cement companies in central Sinai, and is also used to export natural gas to the Kingdom of Jordan. Prosecutors are investigating the bomb site and questioning eye witnesses regarding the explosion.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing, although some mainstream media outlets are accusing the radical armed Islamist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdes of carrying out the attack.

Pipelines have been used to export Egypt’s natural gas to Israel and Jordan for nearly 10 years. However, exports to Israel have been halted since 2012, while exports to Jordan have been interrupted on several occasions as a result of repeated bombings.

Egypt is presently suffering from a chronic shortage of gas supplies, which have resulted in power outages and blackouts across the country for more than three years.