Egyptian police officers stand guard at the site of bomb explosions targeted at a checkpoint in Giza, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 7, 2014. (Photo: AP)
Attacks on security personnel continued in four Egyptian cities on Monday, with two police officers shot dead and another hospitalised with severe gunshot wounds.
Hassan Sayed, a police officer in the Upper Egyptian city of Beni Suef, was gunned down by unknown assailants in front of a currency exchange office while he was on his way to work, according to an official source from the interior ministry, state-run MENA reported.
Meanwhile near Cairo, a low-ranking police officer was shot dead in the Al-Badrasheen district of Giza. The officer was riding in a police vehicle when it came under fire from an armed group of unidentified assailants travelling on a motorcycle.
Also in Giza, another officer was severely injured when he was shot by unknown assailants. The officer was sent to the hospital shortly afterwards.
In the southern city of Aswan, an unidentified group set fire to a car belonging to an official in the city's criminal investigation department.
Also on Monday, an unknown group shot at a police rescue car in front of a police station in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, leaving one officer injured and a nearby shop damaged.
Sayed's death in Beni Suef recalls three other senior police officers who have been gunned down in a similar manner in recent months – Mohamed Mabrouk in Cairo in November, Mohamed Said in Giza in January and Mohamed Eid Abdel-Salam in Sharqiya in February.
About 175 policemen have died in the political turmoil following the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi.
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim survived an assassination attempt in Cairo last September.
The killings of police officers Mabrouk and Said, as well as the attempt on Ibrahim, have all been claimed by the militant Islamist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, which has been responsible for a wave of terrorist attacks in recent months targeting the police and army.
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