Assailants injure five policemen across Egypt

At least five Egyptians are wounded, one critically, after heavily-armed assailants launch two separate attacks on security personnel across the North African country, Press TV reports.

In the first attack, at least four policemen were wounded on Monday when their vehicle was targeted by attackers in the province of Bani Suef, south of the capital, Cairo.

Security sources said the assailants opened fire at the policemen who were on duty to safeguard the Ibshna highway in the troubled region.

The attackers managed to escape the scene after police returned fire.

The injured policemen were rushed to a nearby hospital to receive necessary treatment. Most of the victims are said to be in critical condition.

Separately, a policeman was critically injured when he was shot in the chest by assailants in the northern Egyptian province of Damietta.

On August 24, at least two Egyptian police officers lost their lives and two dozen others sustained injuries when a roadside bomb explosion ripped through their vehicle in the Nile Delta province of Beheira, 260 kilometers (160 miles) north of Cairo.  

Also on August 20, an explosives-laden car went off close to a state security building in Cairo’s densely populated residential neighborhood of Shubra al-Khaima, leaving 29 people, including six policemen, injured.

The militants have already targeted police and staged bomb attacks outside key buildings in Cairo, including the presidential palace and Cairo University.

Egypt’s top state prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, was also killed in a car bomb attack in June.

Gunmen have intensified terrorist attacks across Egypt over the past year.

Militants from the Velayat Sinai terror group, previously known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, have claimed responsibility for most of the attacks. Last November, the group pledged allegiance to the Daesh terrorist group, which is wreaking havoc in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

The Egyptian military-backed government views the Sinai Peninsula as a sanctuary for extremists.