Egyptian police ambushed, 25 dead

Militants ambushed two police mini-buses carrying off-duty officers in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula Monday, killing 25 of them execution-style. The brazen daylight attack comes one day after 36 detainees were killed while in police custody.

In Monday's Sinai attack, the militants forced the two vehicles to stop, then ordered the policemen to get out and lie on the ground before shooting them, officials said. The policemen were in civilian clothes, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which also left two policemen wounded.

The officials initially said the policemen were killed when the militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the two mini-buses. Such confusion over details in the immediate aftermath of attacks is common. Egyptian state television also reported that the men were killed execution-style.

The killings, which took place near the border town of Rafah, came a day after police fired tear gas to free a prison guard from rioting detainees, killing at least 36. 

Authorities said the detainees died during an attempted prison break by armed supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in which one officer was seriously wounded. But there were numerous counterclaims, including the suggestion that not all the prisoners were members of the Islamist group and that they died because of asphyxiation from tear gas while locked in the back of a police truck.

In all, nearly 1,000 people have been killed in clashes between security forces and supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi since last Wednesday.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, the country's military chief, said Sunday that the military crackdown on Morsi supporters, followed by a state of emergency and a nighttime curfew imposed in Cairo and several other flash points, was needed to protect the country from "civil war."

El-Sisi has vowed that the military will stand firm in the face of the rising violence but also called for the inclusion of Islamists in the post-Morsi political process.

Sinai, a strategic region bordering the Gaza Strip and Israel, has witnessed almost daily attacks since Morsi's ouster – leading many to link the militants there to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Morsi hails.

Egyptian military and security forces have been engaged in a long-running battle against militants in the northern half of the peninsula.

Al-Qaeda-linked fighters – some of whom consider the Brotherhood too moderate – and tribesmen have used the area for smuggling and other criminal activity for years and occasionally fired rockets into Israel and staged cross-border attacks.

A year ago, 16 Egyptian border guards, members of a branch of the army, were slain in Sinai near the borders with Gaza and Israel in a still unresolved attack that is widely blamed on militants.

Egypt shut the Rafah border crossing, which is the only way most Palestinians in Gaza can leave the territory, after the deadly attack, a border official told the AFP news agency.

Last week, Egypt said it would close the crossing indefinitely, but it was partially reopened on Saturday, according to the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza.

Sinai seen almost daily attacks by suspected gunmen since Morsi's July 3 ouster in a military coup. The Rafah attack was the deadliest in the Sinai in years.

The security situation in the Sinai Peninsula has deteriorated since 2011, when former President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown.

According to AFP, at least 49 security officials have been killed in Sinai since July 5, not including those in the latest attack. The army claims it has killed nearly 70 terrorists in the region since July 3.

Al Jazeera and wire services