EGYPT: Egyptian security forces clash with gunmen on the outskirts of Cairo, as the army-backed government moves to reassert control over an Islamist-dominated area where militants staged a bloody attack on a police station last month.

Record ID: 710589

  • Title: EGYPT: Egyptian security forces clash with gunmen on the outskirts of Cairo, as the army-backed government moves to reassert control over an Islamist-dominated area where militants staged a bloody attack on a police station last month.
  • Date: 19th September 2013
  • Summary: KERDASA, GIZA, EGYPT (REUTERS) (SEPTEMBER 19, 2013) VARIOUS OF ARMY CHECKPOINT AT ENTRANCE TO KERDASA VILLAGE ARMY CHECKING CAR AS IT ENTERS RESIDENTS WALKING PAST SOLDIER SOLDIERS WAVING AT CAR AS IT APPROACHES THEM AND POINTING GUN AT IT SOLDIERS WAVING AT CAR SOLDIERS AT CHECKPOINT SOLDIER POINTING GUN VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS INSIDE KERDASA VILLAGE, IN APARTMENT BUILDING
  • Embargoed: 4th October 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Egypt
  • Country: Egypt
  • Topics: Crime,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACL0JRQDHDVHHMN9ZOPF39CTA4
  • Story Text: Egyptian security forces clashed with gunmen on the outskirts of Cairo on Thursday (September 19) as the army-backed government moved to reassert control over an Islamist-dominated area where militants staged a bloody attack on a police station last month.
    A police general was killed in an exchange of gunfire outside the small town of Kerdasa, 14 km (9 miles) from Cairo.
    Dozens of police and army vehicles entered the town at daybreak. It was the second operation this week to restore control over an area where Islamist sympathies run deep and hostility to the authorities has grown since the army deposed President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood on July 3.
    The police were hunting 140 suspects and could be seen making arrests in Kerdasa on Thursday.
    There had been little or no sign of state authority in Kerdasa since an August 14 attack on its police station in which 11 officers were killed.
    The building was hit with rocket-propelled grenades and torched after police had stormed pro-Mursi protest camps in Cairo and killed hundreds of his supporters.
    The main suspects in the Kerdasa attack had been detained, state TV reported.
    Security sources said dozens of weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, had been seized, and 41 people were arrested.
    Militant attacks have been on the rise since the overthrow of the Islamist Mursi, Egypt's first freely-elected president.
    The army is mounting an operation in the Sinai Peninsula against al Qaeda-inspired groups. Shootings and bomb attacks have also taken place in the Nile Valley, with two members of the armed forces shot dead in the Nile Delta on Tuesday.
    In Cairo on Thursday, explosives experts defused two primitive bombs on the metro public transport system.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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