Two tourism policemen were killed by gunmen on Wednesday near the Giza Pyramids in Egypt. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead two members of Egypt’s tourism and antiquities police force on a road near the Giza pyramids on Wednesday, security sources said, in a rare attack near a tourist site.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but Islamist militants bent on toppling the Cairo government have in the past killed hundreds of police and soldiers, usually at checkpoints and barracks or police stations. However Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which has recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State regional militant group, claims responsibility for most of the anti-government attacks, which took place in the restive Sinai peninsula and extended lately to capital Cairo and other provinces across Egypt.
A shift towards attacks on softer tourist and economic targets could undermine Egypt’s efforts to win back foreign tourists scared away by political and economic turmoil since a 2011 uprising which ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Tourism is one of the top sources of income and foreign currency earnings for the Arab world’s most populous country.
