20100925
reuters

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Dozens of armed Bedouins surrounded a police station in central Sinai on Friday, locking in 15 police officers and setting a car ablaze in the worst bout of violence in the region for nearly two months.

Bedouins at a remote village mosque became angry after a security officer tried to stop one of their elders from giving the sermon at Friday prayers when the cleric sent by the Ministry of Religious Endowments did not turn up.

The Bedouins attacked the officer at the mosque in al-Gafafa, then surrounded the station, firing rubber bullets into the air, burning tires and setting a vehicle on fire, witnesses and security sources said.

Police responded by sending in armoured vehicles and said the situation had been contained.

"The crisis was contained after Bedouin elders intervened. The police forces inside the station were given orders not to fire back, to prevent casualties from both sides," a security source told Reuters.

Bedouins, among nomadic Arab tribes in the Sinai, often complain of neglect by the government and of police harassment, saying they have little access to jobs and do not see benefits from economic growth in Sinai.

"Police are trying to stop any gatherings of Bedouins, even if that is at the Friday prayer," one Bedouin tribesmen said, asking not to be named for fear of reprisals.

"The state imams are few and they do not show up, which forces us to rely on our own elders to lead the prayers," he said.

Police detained thousands of Bedouins after a series of bombings at tourist resorts in south Sinai in 2004-2006. Relations have since been strained, with sporadic clashes with security forces.