Gunmen attack general in Cairo

Four people were killed yesterday and six injured when Muslim militant gunmen avenging 14 comrades hanged on the orders of military courts ambushed an Egyptian army general's car in the capital, Reuter reports from Cairo

The general escaped unhurt, but the Interior Ministry said one attacker and one passer-by had been shot dead. An injured policemen later died, as did an attacker seized by passers-by and beaten up.

Witnesses believed two or three other gunmen fled into the City of the Dead, a vast mediaeval cemetery in Cairo. The ambush, a day after five men were hanged for trying to kill the Information Minister and attacking tourist buses, was the first militant operation against an army target in 18 months of political violence in Egypt.