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Eight Hasm Movement Extremists Killed in Egyptian Police Shootout | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A policeman stands guard in Cairo, Egypt, on 28 April (Reuters)


Cairo- Egypt’s interior ministry announced on Sunday the death of eight terrorists and the arrest of five Hasm extremists in Faiyum, Giza, and Sharqia.

Egyptian police killed eight Hasm Movement militants in a shootout during a raid on their training camp south of Cairo, the interior ministry said in a statement. According to the statement, two other Hasm hideouts located in Giza and Sharqiya governorates were raided.

Five other militants were arrested in operations carried out in Giza and Sharqiya regions, it said.

The National Security Agency was able to discover a hideout used by the group in a desert area in Fayoum, to train “new youths elements” on the use of arms, the ministry said in a statement.

Automatic rifles, ammunitions and supplies were recovered at the Fayoum camp southwest of the capital, the ministry said. Police also found documents detailing upcoming terrorist operations at the two Hasm hideouts.

Founded in 2016, The Arms of Egypt Movement, abbreviated as Hasm Movement, is an active extremist militant group operating in Egypt.

Hasm has claimed several attacks on security forces, said on Friday it had carried out a shooting last week in Fayoum, a province about 60km south of Cairo, that killed one policeman and injured three others.

Egypt accuses Hasm of being a militant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, a hardline group it outlawed in 2013.

Sunday’s announcement comes only two days after the police said they had shot dead two Hasm leaders during a raid on their hiding place, also in Fayoum, which is around 100km south of Cairo.

Egyptian security forces have arrested and killed dozens of suspected Hasm members in the past few months.

Recently the Hasm Movement has claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack in Cairo, which killed two police officers and injured three conscripts.