General's killing strengthens resolve to eliminate 'terrorists'

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim on Thursday said the killing of a police general during a security crackdown in Giza's Kerdasa had left Egyptian security forces "more determined to eliminate terrorists" from the flashpoint town. Security forces, he said in a statement, "are resolved to hunt down all criminals and terrorists in Kerdasa and restore security and stability to the Egyptian street." Early Thursday, Egyptian security forces stormed Kerdasa, home to an estimated 450,000 inhabitants, to hunt down what authorities describe as "militants and terrorists." Police General Nabil Farag, Giza's deputy security chief, died of injuries sustained during the operation. The interior minister said security forces were advancing across the town and had seized control of the local police station and Kerdasa's main roads. A group of "criminals," Ibrahim said, had been arrested and caches of weapons seized during the operation. Security sources had earlier said that at least 48 people had been arrested in the besieged town. The raid ostensibly aims to arrest 140 wanted individuals and confiscate stockpiles of heavy weapons believed to be in the town. Last month, militants attacked the Kerdasa police station, lynching 11 security personnel in the process. The attack had followed the violent dispersal of two protest camps set up by supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and Giza's Nahda Square. While local media had blamed the police station attack on Morsi supporters, Kerdasa residents dismiss these claims, saying that leading Muslim Brotherhood members and Morsi supporters had been in Rabaa and Nahda squares at the time.