Egypt holds funeral for soldiers slain in border attack

8/7/2012

CAIRO — Egypt is holding a military funeral for 16 soldiers killed in an attack over the weekend by suspected militants in Sinai near the borders with Gaza and Israel.

Mourners prayed for the dead at a mosque in an east Cairo suburb on Tuesday. The coffins, wrapped in Egypt’s red-white-and-black flag, were later taken to a nearby square where a military ceremony is under way.

The military says 35 gunmen attacked an Egyptian border post, killing the 16 before commandeering an armored vehicle they later used to try to storm across the border into Israel. It has accused Palestinians from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip of aiding the gunmen.

Some among the mourners chanted slogans against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, a parent movement of the militant Hamas group.