An attack on a police vehicle in a village near Beni Suef Monday night left a police officer dead and four conscripts injured, a Ministry of Interior spokesperson told Daily News Egypt. The ministry spokesperson added that no suspects have yet been apprehended. In a similar incident, four civilians were injured Monday night in an attack on a microbus in a village near Qena, according to state-run newspaper Al-Ahram. The Ministry of Interior is yet to release a statement on the incident. Both attacks involved shootings by unknown assailants. The attacks come following the assassination of Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat on Monday. Barakat was seriously injured in an explosion that targeted his convoy on Monday morning, but later died of his wounds in hospital following surgery. The blast left eight people injured, including five security personnel, two drivers and one civilian bystander, according to the Ministry of Health. Attacks occur on a near-weekly basis in Egypt. The country has been grappling with a militant insurgency, which spiked after the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi by the military, following mass protests against his turbulent one-year rule. The government regularly blames such incidents on the Brotherhood and its affiliates, while the group's leadership repeatedly denies involvement, insisting it is committed to peaceful forms of resistance. Egypt has seen a rise of extremist militant groups, many of which have used Islamist rhetoric to explain their ideology and justify their attacks. The insurgency facing the Egyptian government has been mainly centred in North Sinai. A militant group formerly known as Ansar Beit Al Maqdis has claimed most of the attacks in this region. The group now calls itself "State of Sinai" after pledging allegiance to the regional extremist group "Islamic State" in November 2014. However, recently, there has been a rise in violent attacks in Cairo and other cities in the country.
