Drive-by shooting kills, injures Egyptian policemen

An Egyptian police officer has been killed and three other security personnel reported wounded by unknown assailants in Sharqiya province, north of the capital Cairo.

The drive-by shooting occurred on Thursdays when the attackers showered the police officers with bullets while riding on a motorcycle, Egypt’s official news agency MENA reported.

According to the report, the number of those killed may climb as two of the injured officers have been seriously wounded in the chest and neck.

In a separate incident on Thursday in the same province during early morning hours, a military officer and a soldier were also reported wounded by masked gunmen near a military zone in Zagazig city.

The developments come as six other security personnel were gunned down in Sharqiya in similar drive-by shooting attacks using motorcycles.

Official figures released by Egyptian authorities further indicate that over 450 members of the nation’s army and police forces have been killed and hundreds more injured since the 2011 downfall of former US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak following a popular uprising.

Egypt has been experiencing deadly crisis since the army unseated former President Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically-elected head of state, on July 3, 2013, and appointed the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court Adly Mahmoud Mansour as the interim president.