April 1, 2014 | Quote
Gunmen Kill 6 Egyptian Soldiers at Checkpoint
Gunmen stormed an Egyptian army checkpoint outside Cairo early Saturday morning and killed six soldiers, including some still in their beds, officials said, in what amounted to an escalation by militants on military targets near the capital.
Just days earlier, masked men opened fire on a busload of military police inside city limits, another rare attack on soldiers this far from the restive Sinai Peninsula, where the army is fighting a counter-insurgency campaign.
Provincial security chief Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Yousri told state news agency MENA that the gunmen also planted explosive devices after Saturday's attack in Shubra al-Kheima, but bomb disposal experts managed to diffuse two and detonate another in a controlled explosion.
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It called him the “field commander” of an August 2011 cross-border attack into southern Israel that targeted a bus and other vehicles near the resort city of Eilat, killing eight people. Egypt's Interior Minister identified Freij as a key figure in the extremist group in January. David Barnett, a research associate with the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that Freij is the highest ranking member of the Ansar identified thus far.