Egypt security forces kill nine ‘armed men’ in Cairo suburb

The Interior Ministry says the nine people killed in a raid on a Cairo apartment in the suburb of '6th of October' were fugitive Muslim Brotherhood leaders who had been meeting to plan terrorist plots. It says the group included two people who had previously been sentenced to death.

A statement from the ministry late Wednesday said that in addition to weapons, investigators found 43,000 Egyptian pounds ($5,630) along with documents and memory cards.

The ministry said the group was planning attacks on the army, police, judiciary and media.

Materials seized in the raid would be used in the investigation of the assassination of chief prosecutor Hisham Barakat, who was killed Monday.

When police went to arrest them, the militants opened fire and the nine were killed in the ensuing gun battle, a security official said according to Agence France-Presse.

The Muslim Brotherhood said the dead were leaders from the blacklisted Islamist movement. Among those dead was Nasser al-Hafi, a prominent lawyer for the Muslim Brotherhood and a former lawmaker.

"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.

In another tweet, the Brotherhood said the dead also included "Abdul Fattah Ibrahim, head of the committee for supporting families of political detainees & martyrs".

Wednesday's incident took place on the same day that the army was fighting an attack by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants in the Sinai and two days after Egypt's public prosecutor was killed by a car bomb in Cairo.

The authorities designated the Brotherhood as "terrorist group" after the ouster of president Mohamed Mursi in July 2013 by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

(with Reuters and AFP)