Two police officers were kidnapped Wednesday by unknown armed men in St. Catherine, in South Sinai. Ahmed Ramadan Morsy and Gad Farag Gad, two police assistants at the St. Catherine Police Department, were riding in an ambulance with a fellow officer suffering from appendicitis en route to Sharm el-Sheikh International Hospital when they were stopped by unidentified gunmen and kidnapped. Their colleagues have in response blocked entry to St. Catherine until the two abducted policemen are released, said Bassem Ammar, head of the Coalition of Police Assistants in St. Catherine. St. Catherine Police assistants said the security department has collected all of their arms ahead of mass protests on 30 June staged by the opposition to demand President Mohamed Morsy's ouster from power and early presidential elections. A military source said that the incident may be a reaction to an earlier attack on a Bedouin leader at a gas station in St. Catherine. Eyewitnesses had told Al-Masry Al-Youm that 17 police men assaulted Sheikh Ahmed Hussein Hureish, a tribal leader in Wadi Feiran, injuring his face and body as he intervened to end a spat over fuel at an oil station in St Catherine. Sinai has suffered a security void since the January 2011 revolution, with recurrent attacks on police stations and army units, one of which led to the killing of 16 soldiers last August. In May, seven soldiers were kidnapped and later released. Most of the attacks and kidnappings are blamed on jihadis or Bedouins. Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
