3 policemen and 1 civilian killed in Arish and Suez attacks

Three policemen and one civilian were killed and three policemen were injured in two separate incidents on Sunday. The first involved the targeting of police forces in a bomb attack in the city of Arish and the second during a shootout in Suez.

According to a statement posted by the Ministry of Interior on its official webpage, an explosive device was planted along Assiut Street in the North Sinai city of Arish, and was detonated when an armored personnel carrier drove by on Sunday.

This explosion is reported to have resulted in the deaths of a police captain and a police conscript, along with the injury of three other police conscripts. The ministry’s statement described the two dead policemen as “Martyrs of National Duty.” 

Investigations are reportedly underway to identify the assailants behind this attack.

In a second separate incident, police forces are reported to have engaged in a shootout with a man wanted on criminal charges in the city of Suez later on Sunday, which resulted in the death of a police officer and the wanted civilian.

A statement issued on the Interior Ministry’s webpage, claims that a security force was dispatched to apprehend the wanted civilian – identified as Ahmed Mahrous Dessouki. The ministry’s statement described him as “a dangerous terrorist element,” without any further details.

According to the ministry, Dessouki opened fire on the police as they closed-in on him, and the police fired back to “control the situation.”

A police major was shot dead in the crossfire, along with Dessouki, and his machine gun confiscated as evidence, the ministry added.

These violent incidents involving police officers and armed militants come just one day after an attack on a police truck in the central Egyptian governorate of Fayoum, which left one policeman dead and three others wounded. The gunmen involved in targeting the truck were reportedly acting in revenge, in response to deaths at the hands of police.

Armed attacks on police and Armed Forces personnel have been particularly common in the Sinai Penninsula since the military-backed ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. However, they have also occurred more frequently in recent months across the rest of the country.