AN ARMY brigadier general has been shot dead by unknown assailants in the Cairo district of Gesr al-Suez.
The officer was killed and two others wounded when gunmen opened fire in a parking garage before fleeing the scene.
Egypt is facing an Islamist insurgency in which hundreds of security officers have been killed since Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Mursi was ousted last summer and replaced by a military leader.
The insurgency is concentrated in parts of the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula, where the government has imposed emergency law following an attack on security forces that left at least 33 of their number dead.
However, militants have extended their reach to the capital, attacking landmarks such as the Supreme Court, the Foreign Ministry and Cairo University in recent months.
After the earlier attack, which was some of the worst anti-state violence since Mr Mursi's overthrow, the government also began razing homes to build a buffer zone of several hundreds of yards bordering the Gaza Strip.
It has also changed the law to allow civilians to be tried in military courts.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article