179 detained in Egypt

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

CAIRO: Egypt’s military prosecution today ordered 179 people be detained over deadly clashes between troops and anti-military protesters in Cairo, a military source told AFP. Following the arrest of 320 people after Friday’s clashes outside the defence ministry in Cairo, the prosecution “has decided to hold 179 people, including 13 women, for 15 days pending investigation,” the source said. After five hours of questioning overnight, the detainees were accused of assaulting army officers and soldiers, assembling in a military zone, and preventing members of the armed forces of carrying out their work, the source said. They all denied the charges. Friday saw fierce clashes between anti-military protesters and troops in the Abbassiya eighbourhood near the defence ministry, that left two people dead, including a soldier, and nearly 300 injured. — AFP

5 hurt in Bahrain blast

DUBAI: Four Bahraini policemen were wounded in a ‘terrorist’ attack in a Shiite village, one of them critically, the kingdom’s interior ministry said on Saturday. “Four policemen injured including one critically in a terror blast in Bani Jamra,” west of the capital Manama, the ministry said on Twitter, without giving further details of the attack or its perpetrators. Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment. Tensions are running high in Bahrain where a month-long uprising led by the Shiite-majority population was crushed in March 2011. Demonstrations have, however, intensified in recent months as protesters sporadically clash with the police. Amnesty International says around 60 people have been killed since the protests first erupted against the Sunni-ruled kingdom in February last year.