CAIRO — Gunmen stormed an Egyptian army checkpoint outside Cairo early Saturday morning and killed six soldiers, including some in their beds, officials said, in what amounted to an escalation by militants on military targets near the capital.
Just days earlier, masked men opened fire on a busload of military police inside city limits, another rare attack on soldiers this far from the restive Sinai Peninsula, where the army is fighting a counterinsurgency campaign.
Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Yousri, the provincial security chief, told state news agency MENA that the gunmen also planted explosive devices after the attack Saturday in Shubra al-Kheima, but bomb-disposal experts managed to diffuse two and detonate another in a controlled explosion.
The military blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, calling the group “terrorists” and saying they had planted the additional bombs to target rescue workers rushing to the scene.
Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali, an Armed Forces spokesman, said the soldiers, of a military police unit, were attacked after morning prayers. The Health Ministry confirmed the death toll.
Egyptian authorities say the Brotherhood has orchestrated a series of bomb attacks on police and other targets since the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the Islamist group.
