A man suspected of being involved in the attack on a US consulate in Libya in which an ambassador was killed has been shot dead in Egypt.
Officials said that the man was keeping weapons in a hideout and that he attacked approaching soldiers before being killed in the Cairo suburb of Madinet Nasr. Known only by his first name, Hazem, the man is believed to have recently returned from Libya.
He is the first Egyptian suspected of being involved in the attack on the Benghazi consulate on September 11, in which US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed. News of Hazem’s death follows the arrest in Tunis of a Tunisian man suspected of links to the attack.
Tunisia’s interior ministry spokesman Tarrouch Khaled said Ali Harzi, 28, was in custody, adding: “His case is in the hands of justice.”
Meanwhile, a Tunisian court jailed Abu Ayub, a leader of radical Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, for a year for inciting an attack on the US embassy in Tunis on September 14.
Both attacks were part of widespread unrest and violence in the Middle East and other Muslim countries over The Innocence of Muslims online film.
