09 May 2016•Update: 09 May 2016
By Hussein Mahmoud
CAIRO
Egypt’s embattled Muslim Brotherhood group has condemned Sunday’s deadly shooting attack in Cairo in which eight policemen were killed.
In a statement, the group rejected any link between Sunday’s attack and the passage of 1,000 days since Egyptian security forces gunned down hundreds of supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi -- a Brotherhood leader -- at a Cairo sit-in.
"We strongly condemn this criminal incident… and denounce desperate attempts to link it to the passage of 1,000 days since the massacre in Rabaa and Nahda squares," the Brotherhood said in a statement.
On Sunday, eight policemen were ambushed and shot dead in an attack on their vehicle in southern Cairo’s Helwan district.
A local group calling itself the "Popular Resistance" claimed responsibility for the attack, linking it to the passage of 1,000 days since the violent sit-in dispersal.
Egypt’s pro-government media claims the group is made up of Muslim Brotherhood members -- an assertion that the Brotherhood denies.
Later on Sunday, militants affiliated with the Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack via Twitter.
"We are against terrorist acts and bloodshed," the Brotherhood said in its statement, going on to offer its condolences to the families of the victims.
On Aug. 14, 2013, hundreds of Morsi supporters were killed when security forces cleared two protest camps in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and Giza’s Nahda Square.
The dispersal came roughly five weeks after the Egyptian army ousted and imprisoned Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, in a military coup.
In the almost three years since Morsi’s overthrow, the Muslim Brotherhood has remained the target of a fierce crackdown by the Egyptian authorities, in which hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands thrown behind bars.
