An Egyptian policeman was killed and another injured Tuesday in a gunfight with armed activists in a popular area of Cairo, a security source said. "The security forces received a tip on the presence of many terrorists in an apartment" in the Al-Amiriya district and then went on the spot, this source told AFP. "An exchange of fire ensued and two members of the security forces were injured and transferred to the hospital" before one of them died, she added.
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A sequence of images of the exterior of the building, in which shots are heard, was broadcast on the private television station CBC Extra News. We also hear a call broadcast by loudspeakers asking the residents of the neighborhood to stay at home. The shooting lasted several hours until after 8 p.m., the time of the start of the night curfew imposed to fight the spread of the new coronavirus, the security source said. The cell was "neutralized," she added, without mentioning arrests or other victims.
The army and the police launched in February 2018 a vast "counterterrorism" operation in the Sinai peninsula, a region in the northeast where extremist groups like the jihadist group Islamic State are rampant, but also in certain parts of the western desert, between the Nile Valley and the border with Libya. Deadly attacks have hit Egypt in recent years.