Gunmen kill conservative candidate in Egypt’s Sinai

Gunmen have shot and killed a conservative parliamentary candidate in Egypt’s Sinai province, security sources said. 

Mostafa Abdelrahman, who belonged to the Salafist Nour party, was shot outside his home in al-Arish early on Saturday morning.

Two men on a motorcycle fired on the politician, just days after Egypt held parliamentary elections, the Reuters news agency reported.

A separate roadside bomb attack on Saturday left three Egyptian police officers dead, also in al-Arish.

The attacks are suspected to be the work of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s local affiliate, which calls itself Sinai Province.

The group has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on politicians, members of the judiciary, and security forces in an armed campaign that has escalated since Egypt’s 2011 uprising.

The Nour party, though religious in its outlook, has forced away many of its previous supporters by aligning itself with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, after his overthrow of former President Mohamed Morsi in a coup in 2013.

Morsi belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, which worked closely with the Nour party before the coup, but has since been proscribed by Egypt’s new rulers.

Many of Morsi’s supporters and sympathisers, which include many Salafists, have been caught up in the security force’s crackdown on the opposition.

The Nour party’s leaders have largely avoided persecution by the Egyptian state.