CAIRO: Two Egyptian policemen died in a gunfight with drug dealers on Saturday, police officials said, as the interior ministry tries to reassert control six months after collapsing during a nationwide revolt.
The policemen were killed after security forced massed on a town in the Nile Delta province of Qaliubiya to arrest drug dealers, the officials said. The wanted men fled the scene.
Many Egyptians, particularly in poor or rural areas, complain that security has been absent after police withdrew from the streets during a nationwide revolt in January and February that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak.
Earlier this week hundreds of angry villagers stormed the home of a notorious criminal and chopped him to pieces after police failed to arrest him, Egyptian newspapers reported.
In another town in southern Egypt, an angry crowd stormed a police station last week and seized its armory, claiming the police were not protecting them from attacks from a neighboring village.
