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Los Angeles Times reports:
Police barracks in Rafah, the town in North Sinai that borders the Gaza strip, came under attack early Monday when a group of unknown perpetrators fired rocket-propelled grenades at the building, Egyptian media reported.
According to Agence France-Presse, at least one Egyptian police officer was injured. Meanwhile, a reporter in North Sinai for Egyptian state-run TV named the victim as Muhammad Ahmad Mahmud, 21, but didn’t mention his profession.
The attackers were deterred by tribesmen in the area who identified them as members of “extremist religious groups and foreign elements from the other side of the border,” added the reporter, speaking on Egypt’s Channel 1.
Sinai Bedouins’ testy relations with Egyptian authorities have been heightened by days of nationwide political unrest.
Bedouin groups in North Sinai often complain of discrimination and harassment from Egyptian authorities. The authorities have a long-running but strained relationship with the militant Islamist group Hamas, which is in charge of the adjacent Gaza Strip.
It was not immediately clear whether Monday’s attack on the police barracks was connected to the popular uprising against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.
Don’t mess with those Bedouins… if it was them. Hard to know what is going on. Was it Mubarak loyalists, the army, Bedouins, Jewish groups, a radical islamic group, protesters, an internal conflict amongst the police, etc.