Mar 25, 2018

Egypt's interior ministry said police on Sunday killed six alleged Islamist militants suspected of involvement in a failed assassination attempt against a security chief.

The Alexandria security chief General Mostafa el-Nemr survived a car bombing aimed at his convoy on Saturday, two days ahead of presidential elections. Two policemen were killed.

The ministry said in a statement that police tracked down the cell belonging to the militant Hasam movement in Behaira province, killing six of them in an exchange of fire.

Police accuse Hasam of being an armed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, banned after the army ousted the unpopular president Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood member, in 2013.

The army chief who led the ouster, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, won an election a year later. He is running in this week's election against a little-known rival and is expected to win.