A policeman and on his assailants were killed after unknown gunmen exchanged fire with security at a checkpoint on a freeway in Sharqiya, north of Cairo in the Nile Delta, during the early hours of Sunday.
Twenty others – 18 of them police conscripts, an officer and another assailant - were wounded in the shooting, Al-Ahram Arabic news site reports.
The police squad was attacked while stationed on a road leading to Sharqiya's city of Zagazig to launch a crackdown operation on militants in the Abu Kabir village.
Egypt has been convulsing in violent turmoil over the past four days since a deadly police raid on protest camps by loyalists of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi left more than 600 killed Wednesday.
Separately, in the Sinai Peninsula city of Al-Arish close to the Israeli border, a policeman was killed and four others injured when unknown gunmen opened fire at a checkpoint on the international Al-Arish airport road Saturday night. Hours earlier, another policeman was shot dead in a separate attack on a police club in the city.
The city has seen a spike in violence with almost daily attacks by militant Islamist on security and army checkpoints since the ouster the Brotherhood-fielded president was deposed on 3 July.
Tens of army and security personnel were killed in drive-by shootings and rocket attacks. Egypt's army said it had killed at least 60 militants in crackdown operations in the deserted peninsula in the month since Morsi's overthrow.
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