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| Africa North |
| Bedouin seize Egyptian police near Israeli border |
| 2008-11-11 |
| Armed Bedouin attacked a security checkpoint Tuesday in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and seized 11 policemen in a restive area near the border with Israel, an Egyptian security official said. The Bedouin tribesmen were angered by a police shooting a day earlier that killed a suspected Bedouin smuggler in the area. Smugglers use the border area to send weapons, drugs and other items into the Gaza Strip, often through underground tunnels. Traffickers also ferry African migrants seeking to enter Israel. The Bedouin tribesmen raided a security checkpoint Tuesday and dragged the 10 policemen and a senior officer into getaway cars in a town six miles (10 kilometers) from the Israeli border, the security official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media. In the incident a day earlier, police were chasing two Bedouin smugglers in a car and shot and killed one of them, he said. The other man was injured. Tribesman Moussa Abu Freh said Bedouin had taken over several other checkpoints near the Egyptian-Israel border. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #1 CAIRO (AFP)--Bedouin tribesmen released 25 Egyptian policemen whom they kidnapped Tuesday in the northern Sinai in protest at the killing of one of their number, a security official said. "The Bedouin freed them in a mountainous area near the Israeli border," the official said. The release came several hours after the police were seized by armed Bedouin in protest at the killing of an alleged drug smuggler in a police shootout. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-11-11 11:20 |