CAIRO: Nine suspected extremists including a commander have been killed in shootouts with police in suburbs of the Egyptian capital, the interior ministry said Wednesday.Police raids to the east and south of Cairo targeted hideouts of “terrorist elements,” it said in a statement.Those killed included “a commander of the Liwa Al-Thawra” extremist group, it added.The Liwa Al-Thawra movement appeared in 2016 and has since claimed deadly attacks against the police and the Egyptian army.Almost nine years after the 2011 uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak, security remains a chief concern in Egypt.Hundreds of security personnel have died in an escalation of attacks since the military overthrow of Islamist president Muhammad Mursi in 2013.That ouster was led by then army chief Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who became president after 2014 polls and secured re-election last year with an official 97 percent of the vote.In February 2018, the army launched a nationwide offensive against extremists, focused mainly on North Sinai, where the Islamic State jihadist group has a significant presence.The authorities say some 650 suspected extremists and around 50 soldiers have been killed since.
