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Two policemen shot in Egypt's Sinai, military opreration to follow: Sources Unknown assailants kill two policemen in Sinai on Sunday; military to launch operations in restive peninsula imminently, sources tell Al-Ahram
Following days of unrest in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula since Defence Minister El-Sisi's move to oust President Mohamed Morsi, two policemen were shot by unknown assailants on Sunday, according to an Al-Ahram correspondent in North Sinai. One of the two policemen was reportedly killed. Sources indicated to Al-Ahram's Arabic-language news website that a full military operation is expected in Sinai within hours, following four attacks on checkpoints earlier Sunday. Seven crates of ammunition were confiscated from an underground tunnel to Gaza, according to Aswat Masreya. This is the third such incident in Sinai, after five Egyptian police officers were shot dead on Friday by unknown gunmen in the North Sinai town of Al-Arish outside a government building, medical sources said Friday. Gunmen attacked armed forces guarding the Al-Arish airport early on Friday. It remains unclear whether the attack – along with another on a police station in the nearby town of Rafah on the Gaza border – were in reaction to the army's overthrow of elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday. Sinai also witnessed the killing of an Egyptian soldier early Friday in coordinated rocket and machinegun attacks by militants on army checkpoints and a police base in the restive peninsula, medics said. The soldier was killed when militants fired on an army checkpoint near the North Sinai village of Al-Gura, medics said, adding that two other soldiers were wounded in the attack. Activist Hossam El-Shorbagy, who is close to the Muslim Brotherhood, told Ahram Online that Islamist militias would not back down from confronting the army because they have flourished during Morsi's period in office. Some 20 militia fighters and one soldier have been killed in clashes in recent days, El-Shorbagy said. The bloodshed has not spared civilians. Gunmen shot dead a Coptic priest in North Sinai on Saturday in what could be the first sectarian attack since the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, security sources said. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood has criticised Coptic Pope Tawadros, spiritual leader of Egypt's roughly eight million Christians, for giving his blessing to the military's removal of the president and attending the announcement by Defence Minister Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi suspending the constitution. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/75943.aspx
