Tribe leader killed in Egypt's North Sinai

Extremist Islamist groups assassinated early Wednesday a leader of one of the renowned tribes in Arish city of Egypt's North Sinai governorate, a security source told Xinhua.

Engineer Abdel-Hamid Selmi, one of the leaders of Al-Fwakhriya tribe in Arish, was shot dead by unknown assailants, when he was heading to a mosque in the city to perform the Muslim Dawn Prayer.

He was killed for his support of the armed forces and the ouster of Islamist-oriented president Mohamed Morsi, according to the source.

"The attackers, who are believed to be members of an extremist Isalmist group, shot him in the abdomen and the back," added the source, noting that the man died in the Arish International Hospital.

Selmi, a former parliamentarian of ex-president Hosni Mubarak's ruling party, had voiced support for the armed forces and condemned the attacks against police and security premises as well as checkpoints on the Peninsula, particularly following Morsi's overthrow in early July.

Violence has risen in Sinai since Mubarak's fall in early 2011 due to deteriorating security conditions.

Since the ouster of Islamist president Morsi, the military has claimed that groups affiliated with the deposed president intensified armed attacks on the Sinai Peninsula, killing dozens of security personnel as well as civilians.