Senior Leader among 9 Brotherhood Members Killed in Cairo Police Raid
An Egyptian police raid on an apartment in Cairo killed nine wanted men including senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Nasser al-Houfi on Wednesday, security officials and the Brotherhood said.
The raid the 6th of October district came as security forces were engaged in fierce fighting with Islamic State group jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula, in which at least 70 soldiers and civilians, have been killed.
Security officials said the nine "terrorists" killed in the capital were wanted for vandalism and violence.
When police went to arrest them, the militants opened fire and the nine were killed in the ensuing gun battle, a security official said.
But the Muslim Brotherhood said the dead were leaders from the blacklisted Islamist movement.
"Egyptian police assassinates 9 Muslim Brotherhood leaders during a meeting to discuss support to families of (political) detainees/martyrs," it said on Twitter in English.
A lawyer for the Brotherhood said the dead included Nasser al-Houfi, a former parliamentarian from the Islamist group.
In another tweet, the Brotherhood said the dead included "Abdul Fattah Ibrahim, head of the committee for supporting families of political detainees & martyrs."
The authorities designated the Brotherhood as "terrorist group" after the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Source: Agence France Presse
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