Suspected Islamic State militants in Egypt’s turbulent Sinai Peninsula ambushed a taxi in which off-duty policemen were travelling back to their units on Saturday, killing five of them before fleeing, according to security and medical officials. The insurgency by the militants in Sinai grew more intense after the 2013 ouster of elected president, Mohammed Morsi, who is an Islamist. Also today, police say the severed head of a man who had been abducted by suspected militants for his alleged cooperation with authorities turned up in Rafah. Separately, security officials said suspected IS militants today kidnapped four clerics belonging to the mystic Sufi sect of Islam from their homes in the village of Nagaa Shabanah on the Egyptian-Israeli border south of Rafah. The four, according to the officials, had repeatedly spoken out in public against the killing by IS militants of local civilians suspected of links to security forces.

Source: Hindustan Times October 01, 2016 18:11 UTC