Cairo. A shooting on Sunday at a heavily guarded security facility in a volatile area of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula left at least four police officers dead, including a senior officer, two security and health officials said.
At least 21 other elements were injured in the shooting at the National Security headquarters in El Arish, capital of North Sinai province, they said.
A list of victims obtained by The Associated Press showed that some of the injured had been hit by gunshots and others had difficulty breathing as a result of tear gas fired inside the facility. Among the wounded were eight officers.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as they are not authorized to make statements to the press.
The circumstances surrounding the shooting were not immediately clear. The Interior Ministry — in charge of overseeing police forces — had no comment.
In the province of North Sinai, an insurgency led by Islamic extremists has been fighting for years and has carried out a large number of attacks, especially against security forces and Christians.
The pace of extremist attacks in the main theater of operations in Sinai and elsewhere has slowed sharply since February 2018, when the armed forces launched a massive operation in the peninsula and parts of the Nile River Delta, as well as in desert areas along the country’s western border with Libya.
