Cairo: Egypt`s military has arrested five
people in connection with clashes in the north Sinai city of
El-Arish that left four people dead, the official MENA news
agency said on Saturday.
Armed forces arrested four men suspected of
involvement in an attack on an El-Arish police station, while
another man was arrested driving close to the police station
with two machine guns in his possession, MENA said.
The arrests late yesterday came after gunmen tried to
storm a police station, sparking a confrontation with security
forces and the Army.
Three civilians and an army officer were killed in the
clashes, and 19 people were wounded.
Yesterday night, around 150 men in trucks and on
motorbikes rampaged through El-Arish, firing assault rifles in
the air, driving terrified residents into their homes.
They rode through the deserted streets of the north
Sinai city waving black flags which read "There is no God but
Allah", before attempting to storm the police station.
Earlier, the masked men used a bulldozer to damage a
statue of the late president Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated
by Islamist militants in 1981.
The violence came after a peaceful demonstration at
noon in one of the city`s squares, part of countrywide
protests by Islamists who want any future constitution to
assert that Egypt is a Muslim state.
PTI
