[MIAMIHERALD] Egyptian security forces on Thursday stormed Kerdasa -- a purported stronghold for ousted President Mohammed Morsi -- exchanged fire with residents in an hours-long street battle and juggedDon't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
dozens of suspected forces of Evil in the latest government crackdown on cities suspected of serving as redoubts for armed Islamists.
A police general, Nabil Farag, died in the violence, the first time security forces had returned to Kerdasa, an industrial town south of Cairo, since Aug. 14, when 11 coppers died in festivities with Islamists who were protesting the clearing in Cairo of a pro-Morsi sit-in. The Cairo action left as many as 1,100 pro-Morsi demonstrators dead in what became the initial step of a fierce crackdown.
There have been similar festivities in other Egyptian cities as communities become quasi-battlefields branded as either pro- or anti-government. The government has launched similar attacks in the Sinai, and earlier this week in the southern city of Delga security forces arrested dozens on charges that they'd torched churches or supported terrorists.
The government said 70 people were arrested Thursday, but interviews with officials at the scene suggested that the total might be much higher.
It wasn't always clear why some of those who were arrested had been targeted. McClatchy news hounds watched security forces detain one man; members of the force couldn't agree on the man's crime.
The man, who sported a beard often favored by Islamists, was arrested at a makeshift checkpoint. The two coppers and one soldier at the scene each offered a different reason.
"We found a machine gun with him," said a police officer who was sitting next to the man in the police cruiser. A second officer farther away said the man was suspected of killing coppers last month. The soldier said the man was being held because "we found empty bullet shells in his pocket while inspecting him."