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Egypt extends state of emergency until September

July 6, 2017 at 12:32 pm

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Berlin, Germany on 12 June 2017 [Egyptian President Office/Apaimages]

Egypt’s Parliament on Tuesday approved an extension of a nationwide state of emergency until the end of September.

Parliament unanimously approved the decision to extend the state of emergency for another three months in April in order to give Egyptian authorities greater powers to crackdown on what it deemed “enemies of the state” following a Daesh attack on two churches that killed at least 45 people.

The new extension ordered by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi will extend the state of emergency until September, Ali Abdelaal, speaker of the House of Representatives, confirmed.

The reasons for which the state of emergency was declared are still in place and therefore it must be extended.

Three security officials were killed this week and ten other policemen wounded by a roadside explosion in the Sinai Peninsula, Reuters reported.

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The blast reportedly hit an armoured vehicle as it drove by in the capital of the North Sinai province, killing a lieutenant colonel of the central security forces and two of his men.

Daesh has not claimed responsibility for the attack but Egyptian authorities said that the group’s fighters were most likely behind the attack and had detonated the bomb remotely as the armoured vehicle drove by.