Four Egypt police killed in Sinai attack — source

CAIRO — Gunmen killed four Egyptian policemen in the restive northern Sinai on Saturday, a security source said, with police blaming the attack on “takfiri” jihadist militants.

Militants in the Sinai Peninsula have stepped up attacks on troops and police since the military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July.

A security source said the men were killed “on the road between the towns of Rafah and El Arish in north Sinai when takfiri elements forced the pickup they were driving to stop, made the four policemen get out and opened fire on them”.

The policemen had been returning to their posts after the weekend, the source said, adding that the attackers fled into the desert.

Most militant attacks have hit the north of the mostly desert Sinai Peninsula, but they have also extended their reach to Cairo and the Nile Delta.

Saturday’s shooting came just hours after bombings killed two people in a Cairo suburb.

The makeshift devices in a telecommunications building under construction in the October 6 suburb were detonated by a mobile phone signal, police told AFP.

Medics said the watchman’s wife and 18-year-old daughter were killed.