Egyptian police on Sunday raided two adjacent apartments used as hideouts by members of a splinter faction of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, killing 10 of them in a shootout, according to security officials.
The exchange of gunfire took place in the densely populated Cairo district of Ard el-Liwa and wounded five policemen, including two officers, said the officials. One of the militants, they said, died when an explosive device he intended to use against the policemen went off prematurely, killing him instantly.
The officials said the militants were members of Hasm, a breakaway Brotherhood faction that has targeted police and army officers in Cairo over the past year in a series of brazen attacks.
Police found in the two apartments bomb-making materials, assault rifles and ammunition as well as maps of vital state installations and computers in which instructions and details of future attacks were stored, they said.
Earlier on Sunday, Egypt’s official MENA news agency said nine militants were killed and five policemen injured in the raid.
Egypt is fighting an insurgency led by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group based in the Sinai Peninsula as well as Brotherhood factions like Hasm, which target members of the security forces in Cairo.
The Sunday shootout was the latest in a series of police raids targeting Hasm members.
AP
