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By Staff, Agencies An Egyptian police officer was killed and three others were wounded during a raid on the hideout of an armed group affiliated with Daesh [the Arabic acronym for terrorist ‘ISIS/ISIL’ group] in the capital Cairo. The Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the casualties took place in the al-Amiyira district in eastern Cairo, where the police exchanged fire with seven gunmen that had plans to carry out terror acts in the area.

The ministry received information "that there is a terrorist cell, whose elements embrace Takfiri ideology, using several areas as a shelter in eastern and southern Cairo as a starting point to carry out terrorist operations," the statement said.

The Egyptian police said all the seven gunmen were killed in the incident and that they had found explosives and weapons with the suspects.

The Egypt’s public prosecutor said a team of investigators had been dispatched to the scene of the attack.

The African country has been fighting long-running militancy in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, spearheaded by a group affiliated with Daesh terrorists.

The Sinai Peninsula has been under a state of emergency since October 2014, after a deadly terrorist attack left 33 Egyptian soldiers dead.

Over the past few years, terrorists have been engaged in anti-government activities and fatal attacks in Egypt, taking advantage of the turmoil that erupted after the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in a military coup in July 2013.

The Velayat Sinai group, which is affiliated with Daesh, has claimed responsibility for most of the assaults.

In February 2018, the Egyptian army launched a full-scale counterterrorism campaign after a terror attack in North Sinai claimed the lives of more than 300 people at a mosque.

Since then, over 840 suspected militants have been killed in the region, according to army figures, along with more than 60 security personnel

Original Article Source: Al Ahed News | Published on Wednesday, 15 April 2020 07:54 (about 1443 days ago)