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| Egyptian Militants Kill Senior Police Officer | Egyptian Militants Kill Senior Police Officer |
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| CAIRO — Militant gunmen killed a senior police officer and injured 10 other officers on Thursday when security forces raided a bastion of Islamist support on the outskirts of Cairo, the capital, redoubling fears of a violent backlash against the recent military takeover. | |
| Security officials said the officer, Gen. Nabil Farag, the assistant security director for the province of Giza, was killed when a large convoy of military tanks and police armored vehicles rolled into the town of Kardasa, across the Nile from Cairo, in an attempt to flush out Islamist militants hiding out there. | Security officials said the officer, Gen. Nabil Farag, the assistant security director for the province of Giza, was killed when a large convoy of military tanks and police armored vehicles rolled into the town of Kardasa, across the Nile from Cairo, in an attempt to flush out Islamist militants hiding out there. |
| The police abandoned the town on Aug. 14, the day security forces killed several hundred Islamist protesters at sit-ins in Cairo and in retaliation, militants stormed Kardasa’s police station. After battering it with rocket-propelled grenades, the militants executed about a dozen officers and mutilated their bodies, according to security officials and video footage of the remains. | |
| The attack on the Kardasa police station was the bloodiest on the security forces outside Sinai since the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, which enraged his Islamist allies in the Muslim Brotherhood. Security officials say militants have killed more than 120 police officers across Egypt. Nearly 50 of those were killed in fighting when soldiers and security forces broke up the Islamist sit-ins on Aug. 14, and more than 50 have been killed in the relatively lawless Sinai, including 15 on a single day last month. | |
| The killing of Giza’s assistant security director on Thursday in Kardasa — a 20-minute drive from Cairo — was the second episode in two weeks to raise the prospect that the violence could spread to the capital, where the government forces are strongest. | The killing of Giza’s assistant security director on Thursday in Kardasa — a 20-minute drive from Cairo — was the second episode in two weeks to raise the prospect that the violence could spread to the capital, where the government forces are strongest. |
| On Sept. 5, a car bomb exploded on a busy Cairo street in an attempt to assassinate the interior minister during his morning commute. Although he survived, the bombing killed at least one police officer and one civilian, and injured more than 20 others. | On Sept. 5, a car bomb exploded on a busy Cairo street in an attempt to assassinate the interior minister during his morning commute. Although he survived, the bombing killed at least one police officer and one civilian, and injured more than 20 others. |
| The police raid on Kardasa, conducted in tandem with the army, was the second operation this week aimed at apprehending fugitive Islamist leaders in a town dominated by opponents of the new government. | The police raid on Kardasa, conducted in tandem with the army, was the second operation this week aimed at apprehending fugitive Islamist leaders in a town dominated by opponents of the new government. |
| On Monday, a convoy of armored vehicles and police trucks occupied the town of Dalga, in the province of Minya, south of Cairo, which has been the site of the worst in a wave of attacks on Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority since Mr. Morsi’s ouster. Security officials, however, said the operation was mainly an unsuccessful attempt to capture Assem Abdel Maged, a veteran leader of the once-militant Gamaa Islamiya group. | |
| Security officials said Thursday that their forces in Kardasa had briefly traded gunfire with local militants as soldiers and riot police officers began to surround the town just after dawn. General Farag was on the front lines, officials said. | |
| “General Nabil Farag was shot during the first 20 minutes of entering the town,” Gen. Medhat el-Menshawi, head of the police’s special operations unit, said in a television interview. He said General Farag was wounded “in the middle of random shooting by terrorists who were trying to stop us from entering Kardasa” and died when he reached a nearby hospital. | |
| General Menshawi said 57 “terrorist elements” had been arrested and insisted that, in contrast to previous operations, none were arrested arbitrarily. “Today there have not been any random arrests,” General Menshawi said. “All of those who were captured had arrest warrants issued against them by the prosecution and we targeted them by their names.” | |
| The extent of the resistance to the raid was difficult to determine. The police barred almost all journalists from entering the town but evidently invited crews from several pro-government satellite networks to film the operation. (General Menshawi said the news media had “pushed us for the operation.”) | |
| The satellite networks broadcast live footage throughout the day, interrupted by adulatory interviews with the officers in charge. By midmorning, one network was broadcasting scenes of groups of riot police officers milling idly in the streets with the sounds of cows mooing in the background. A group of six officers in security vests posed for the cameras in front of an armored vehicle. Three others pointed their guns at the necks of two captives kneeling with hands tied behind their backs. | |
Amro Hassan contributed reporting. | Amro Hassan contributed reporting. |