A court sentenced 188 protesters to death for support of the Muslim Brotherhood and complicity in the killing of 11 police officers in Kardasa in August 2013. A member of the Helwan Brigades was arrested for allegedly attempting to blow up a police station in Helwan. The leader of al-Azhar, a prominent Sunni scholars group, condemned the Islamic State as “barbaric,” while not ruling out the possibility that factors inciting the group’s rise were related to “a plot by Israel.” The Egyptian Army said it killed seven “terrorist elements” and arrested 15 others in north Sinai on Dec. 2.
