Police Egypt

Egyptian police shot and killed one convict and wounded and recaptured a second who escaped July 17 while serving life terms for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, the Interior Ministry said. Mohammed Khames, 40, was slain Monday after he opened fire on police when they surrounded his apartment in a Cairo suburb, the ministry said. In a separate incident, police recaptured Ahmed Aswani, 31, after a gun battle.

Hundreds of Egyptian police using armored personnel carriers battled Muslim guerrillas in a quarry hide-out, killing 12 militants. Police said the battle in the southern village of Bani Khaled lasted several hours and took the death toll from political violence in one day to 18 in three clashes.

Rioters enraged over a police attack on a Cairo mosque battled Egyptian security forces who fired weapons and tear gas, leaving one man dead and 22 people wounded, authorities and witnesses said. The Interior Ministry said Muslim extremists of the Jihad (Holy War) organization led demonstrators protesting the attack by security forces Friday night on a mosque in a Cairo suburb after getting reports that militants were meeting there to "plot acts of incitement and violence."

Rioters enraged over a police attack on a Cairo mosque battled Egyptian security forces who fired weapons and tear gas, leaving one man dead and 22 people wounded, authorities and witnesses said. The Interior Ministry said Muslim extremists of the Jihad (Holy War) organization led demonstrators protesting the attack by security forces Friday night on a mosque in a Cairo suburb after getting reports that militants were meeting there to "plot acts of incitement and violence."

Police used batons and fired tear gas Tuesday to disperse a crowd of university students protesting the arrest of 26 of their colleagues during an anti-Israel demonstration on Jan. 5, witnesses said. They said about 70 students marched outside the Ein Shams University shouting slogans against Maj. Gen. Zaki Badr, Egypt's interior minister.

Hundreds of Egyptian police using armored personnel carriers battled Muslim guerrillas in a quarry hide-out, killing 12 militants. Police said the battle in the southern village of Bani Khaled lasted several hours and took the death toll from political violence in one day to 18 in three clashes.

A suspected planner of the 1997 Luxor massacre that killed 62 people -- mostly tourists -- was handed over by Uruguayan authorities to Egyptian police, Egypt's Middle East News Agency said. Uruguayan police arrested Mohammed Ali Hassan Mokhlis in early 1999. Mokhlis was taken into custody after his arrival at Cairo's international airport, according to the news agency. He is wanted in the Nov.

Two men suspected of involvement in bombing three Egyptian Red Sea resorts last year were killed in gun battles with police in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, officials said. Bombs killed at least 34 people Oct. 7 at Taba and two other resorts popular with Israelis. Police have fought since Tuesday with Bedouin, who were believed to be hiding suspects in the Ras Sudr area of central Sinai, about 95 miles east of Cairo. A third suspect was killed earlier.

Egyptian authorities have released a Muslim cleric kidnapped in a suspected CIA operation in Italy and handed over to Egypt, the cleric's lawyer said Sunday. Hassan Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was grabbed off a Milan street in 2003 and flown to Egypt, where he said he had been tortured by Egyptian agents using electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse. Lawyer Montasser Zayat said a court had ordered Nasr to be freed, and the Interior Ministry had complied.

CAIRO - An Egyptian human rights groups reported this week that torture and police brutality, which helped spark a national uprising two years ago, have continued under the new Islamist-led government. Over the course of 2011 and 2012, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) documented more than 20 extrajudicial killings as a result of torture or "unnecessary" use of firearms by police forces, the group said in a report released ahead of the second anniversary of the Jan. 25 revolt that eventually toppled former President Hosni Mubarak.

Egyptian police shot and killed one convict and wounded and recaptured a second who escaped July 17 while serving life terms for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, the Interior Ministry said. Mohammed Khames, 40, was slain Monday after he opened fire on police when they surrounded his apartment in a Cairo suburb, the ministry said. In a separate incident, police recaptured Ahmed Aswani, 31, after a gun battle.

Police used batons and fired tear gas Tuesday to disperse a crowd of university students protesting the arrest of 26 of their colleagues during an anti-Israel demonstration on Jan. 5, witnesses said. They said about 70 students marched outside the Ein Shams University shouting slogans against Maj. Gen. Zaki Badr, Egypt's interior minister.

As deadly clashes intensified Monday between thousands of protesters and riot police, Egypt's interim government offered to resign in an attempt to calm three consecutive days of unrest that have shaken the country ahead of next week's parliamentary elections. It was unclear whether the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces would accept the Cabinet's offer to step aside, which would severely undermine the military's legitimacy. It was unlikely that resignations would appease protesters whose main target of derision has been the ruling generals and their refusal to hand power over to a new democracy.

Tour operators have arranged the hasty withdrawal of hundreds of foreign tourists from southern Egypt in the aftermath of Monday's carnage near Luxor. The scenes are reminiscent of an evacuation of civilians from a war zone, which in a sense Egypt has become. The Egyptian government's confident recent claim that it had largely neutralized extremist religious groups, including Gamaa al Islamiya, which on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the slaughter, has now been exposed as wishful thinking.