At least 11 killed by unknown assailants at Cairo protest

PanARMENIAN.Net - Unknown assailants have killed at least 11 people protesting against Egypt's ruling generals near the defense ministry in Cairo, officials say, according to BBC News.

The attackers set on them at dawn using rocks, clubs, firebombs and firing shotguns. The protesters retaliated, beating some of the assailants. Soldiers and police have now stopped the clashes, but the intervention came nearly six hours after they began.

Two leading presidential candidates have suspended campaigning in protest. Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, an independent Islamist, and Mohammed Mursi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), criticised the authorities' response.

In addition, the FJP and the Salafist Nour party, which together control 70% of the seats in parliament, decided to boycott a meeting with the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (Scaf).

Many of the protesters who were attacked outside the defense ministry building, in the capital's Abbasiya district, on Wednesday May 2 morning were supporters of a Salafist preacher barred from standing in the election.

Hazem Abu Ismail was disqualified because his mother had dual Egyptian-US nationality, violating rules laid out in a constitutional declaration approved after an uprising forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

Some reports said the unidentified attackers were local people, angry at the disruption caused by the sit-in, which began on Saturday. But many Egyptians will suspect that, at the very least, the government turned a blind eye.

Soldiers and police deployed in the area initially did not intervene to stop the clashes, nor did they when one person was killed in a similar attack early on Sunday.

The health ministry said more than 150 people were injured on Wednesday and that many were receiving treatment at a nearby field clinic. Some had gunshot wounds and others had been attacked with knives, according to medical sources.