An angry mob attacked a pro-Morsi rally stage in North Sinai on Wednesday in response to the early Wednesday murder of a Mubarak-era parliamentarian by unknown assailants.
Attackers shooting from a moving car fired four bullets at former parliamentarian Abdel Hamid Silmi, 58, as he left a mosque on Wednesday, according to Reuters. Silmi was a member of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's now-disbanded National Democratic Party.
Following Silmi's murder, the angry mob composed mostly of youth attacked a stage set up by the Muslim Brotherhood, the group from which former president Mohamed Morsi hails, according the Al-Ahram's Arabic website.
The platform was destroyed and removed.
The anger displayed towards the Muslim Brotherhood is the first of its kind in North Sinai, which has seen a series of attacks by Islamist militants against security personnel in response to the popularly-backed army removal of the former Islamist president on 3 July.
The militants have struck security checkpoints on an almost daily basis in the restive peninsula, killing at least 40 people, according to Reuters. Silmi was the first civilian directly targeted, though there have been other civilian deaths.
Members of Silmi's prominent Fawakhreya tribe have gathered amid an atmosphere of charged fury at the Arish General Hospital, where Silmi was moved following the shooting outside the Abu-Bakr Al-Seddiq Mosque.
Critics of the Brotherhood accuse the group of instigating violence in the Sinai Peninsula, after senior Brotherhood figure Mohamed El-Beltagi stated last month that violence in Sinai would immediately subside should Morsi be reinstated.
The army, along with the police, have been increasing reinforcements in the peninsula in an attempt to crack down on militant jihadists.
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