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GUNMEN HAVE SHOT dead eight Egyptian policemen in the Helwan district, south of Cairo, the interior ministry has said.
The policemen were travelling in a minibus when the assailants in a pickup truck blocked their path and sprayed the vehicle with automatic rifle fire, the ministry said.
Jihadists, including Islamic State group militants, have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers in attacks, mostly in the Sinai Peninsula and also in and around Cairo.
Egyptian criminal gangs have also killed policemen in shoot-outs, but the attack bore the hallmarks of jihadists who have waged an insurgency since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
The interior ministry said the dead included a lieutenant and seven lower ranking policemen who were patrolling the area just south of the capital when they were ambushed late at night.
Militants had struck before in Helwan, killing a policeman standing guard outside a museum in June 2015.
The jihadists, who are based in the sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, have repeatedly tried to make inroads in the capital, where police have had more success in quelling them than in Sinai.
They have claimed several attacks in Cairo, including an attempted assassination of the interior minister in late 2013 and the bombing of the Italian consulate in July 2015.
More recently militants have conducted hit-and-run attacks on policemen in Cairo and small scale bombings.
Retaliation
They often claim their attacks are in retaliation for a bloody police crackdown on Islamist supporters of Morsi, which has killed hundreds of protesters and imprisoned thousands.
They have also targeted foreigners.
In October, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for bombing a Russian airliner carrying holidaymakers from a south Sinai resort, killing all 224 people on board.
The group said it smuggled explosives concealed in a soda can on to the plane in the airport at Sharm El-Sheikh, a popular Red Sea resort in south Sinai.
That attack prompted Russia to suspend all flights to Egypt, and has lost the country hundreds of millions of dollars in tourism revenues.
The bombing came two months after they abducted a Croatian oil worker near Cairo and beheaded him. Police later tracked down the top Islamic State group operative in Cairo, who was linked to the Croat’s murder, and killed him in a shoot-out.
But efforts to quell the insurgency in Sinai have floundered despite a massive army campaign.
In March, Islamic State gunmen killed 15 policemen in an attack on a checkpoint near the El-Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai.
Since pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq, in November 2014, the Sinai branch’s attacks have grown more sophisticated.
The military says it has killed more than 1,000 militants, occasionally publishing pictures of their bodies. The claims are difficult to verify, with reporters having little access to the north of the peninsula.
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If we banned Islam the whole world would benefit.
@Emma
But the cops who were killed probably were Muslims.
Well I am sure as they where getting shot, the words “Allah Akbar” being shouted by their attackers was some comfort to them in that case.
Has anyone heard from the Halawa’s on this subject yet?
Maybe The Journal should provide a link to this story every time they run one on the Halawas!
Muslim Brotherhood again. Pres. SISI probably thinking it’s time to make an example of a few. If so it will be a big few. Disturbing to think that top MB terrorist Yusuf Al-Qaradawi operates one of his terror agencies out of Clonskeagh.
Here’s what a former Clonskeagh muslim has to say about Clonskeagh mosque and Al-Qaradawi.
—”’I never, ever, expected that Muslims would come under the influence of extremists in Ireland when I arrived here with my family. So I was shocked to find support for Osama bin Laden, to discover the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood and even al-Qaeda here in Dublin.’
Satardien fell out with the main Dublin mosque at Clonskeagh, singling out the influence of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian born sheikh who has spoken openly in support of suicide bombers and issued fatwas on gays.—”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/14/religion.ireland
Al-Qaradawi also features heavily in a wilkileaks report into the Clonskeagh mosque, but shhhhh, we’re not supposed to say bad things about Clonskeagh because the Halawas are connected to it….
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DUBLIN798_a.html
The wahabbis are obviously feeling they have enough support to enable them to carry out such a public atrocity in a suburb of one of the biggest cities in the ME…it must be a huge concern for all their neighbours…a state that size to disintegrate the way Libya next door and Syria just up the coast have…the MB,ISIS,HAMAS,Al Nusra thrive on polarisation and chaos – and Israel is sharing a border with the Sinai.
@Avna Laaf……Very interesting link to wikileaks on Clonskeagh. I note mention of Shuitehead Choudhry’s visit to BS the gullibini and his shared debate with Ali Salim. Do we need people like this in Ireland and Europe?
—”He(Choudhry) argued, with Ali-Saleem’s tacit complicity, that victims of 9/11, Madrid, and 7/7 are collateral damage and justifiable losses in an ongoing struggle to regain a global Islamic state. This was Choudhry’s second visit to Ireland since November, when he appeared at a Trinity College Philosophical Society debate on terrorism.—-”
Halawa senior himself also features heavily in the wikileaks doc, and not in a good way.
It’s absolutely right to be concerned, yet some ignoratii on the far left won’t hear a bad word said about him.
@Avina Laaf……………Looking at the wikileaks further it’s obvious that there’s a fifth column busy at undermining the state.All concerned Irish citizens ought read the wikileak reports on Clonskeagh and all its evil works and contact the security forces about it to ensure follow-up.
Somebodies god is happy I guess
Drug crazed nutters IS
reminds you of the vile provos killing innocent policemen
Tommy Mac/Leo/Diarmuid take it up with your joint first minister,Marty.
It’s not SF’s fault you were ill prepared for the collapse of your beloved orange sectarian statlet,cry all you want for another 5 years here but the ruc/b-specials are consigned to the dustbin of history,labelled a sectarian murderous disgrace
You should have more pressing matters like no mla on the Shankill so if you or your maw has problems with benefits you will have to around to the SF office on the Falls,I can’t see the newly elected PBP/AAA lad having much sway in such matters.
The dogs should be chaised down and eliminated , no questions asked . Egypt what were they doing going around in a soft target wagon they should have armoured trucks at the very least . Spend some of the cash that’s hidden way in Lichtenstein
have your say