Hamas denies training Egypt militant groups
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has denied training militants who claim to have been behind a string of bomb attacks in Egypt in the past two weeks.
Egyptian state television alleged on Thursday that Hamas' military wing had trained Sinai-based jihadists to carry out car bombings and make explosives.
State-run paper al-Ahram said Hamas had also been involved in an assassination attempt on Egypt's interior minister.
A Hamas spokesman dismissed the claims, insisting they had no basis in fact.
The authorities in Cairo have accused Hamas, which governs the neighbouring Gaza Strip, of interfering in Egyptian affairs since the military ousted President Mohammed Morsi in July.
The group was founded in the 1980s as an offshoot of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.
Mr Morsi was remanded in custody for a further 30 days on Friday morning on suspicion of conspiring with Hamas over his escape from prison during the 2011 uprising that forced Hosni Mubarak from power.
The government has also extended for two months the state of emergency brought in last month after security forces stormed two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo, triggering clashes that left hundreds dead.
- "Documented"
On Thursday, a presenter on state TV said Egyptian "security authorities" had learned that Hamas' military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, "trained several people to undertake car-bombing operations and trained various others to make explosives".
"The military wing of the Hamas movement provided various Salafist jihadists and also other religious currents with 400 landmines. The security apparatus documented this and they will be arrested."
Al-Ahram meanwhile cited high-ranking security sources as saying Hamas had also been involved in the suspected suicide bomb attack that targeted Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim's convoy as it drove through Cairo on 5 September.
The hardline group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which is based in the Sinai peninsula, said it was behind the assassination attempt and promised more attacks in revenge for the crackdown on Islamists.
Another group, Jund al-Islam, has meanwhile said it had carried out recent attacks in Sinai, including the twin suicide car bombings that targeted a military intelligence facility and an army checkpoint in the town of Rafah, not far from the border with Gaza.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum dismissed the claim it was involved.
"This is completely incorrect," he told the Reuters news agency, adding that this was an "attempt to demonise Hamas".
Another Hamas official said the reports were an attempt to justify the heightened "siege" of the Gaza Strip, which has seen the Egyptian authorities limit movement through the Rafah border crossing and destroy dozens of smuggling tunnels as part of a crackdown on Sinai militants.
Prices of consumer items in Gaza have risen dramatically, and cheap Egyptian fuel is in short supply. Israel also maintains a partial blockade.
Somali crisis: Amnesty criticises evictions in Mogadishu
Amnesty International has denounced the forcible eviction of tens of thousands of homeless people from makeshift camps in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
The human rights group says the process has led to "large-scale human rights abuses" including the killing of two people during protests.
Some 370,000 people have been living in the camps, having fled drought, famine and fighting.
But their presence is hampering the government's drive to rebuild the city.
In the past year the authorities have gained greater control of Mogadishu from the Islamist group al-Shabab.
The government announced in January a plan to relocate hundreds of thousands of displaced people to camps on the outskirts of the city.
The Amnesty report says the "relocation plan could have been a positive development" if it had respected "the security, fundamental rights and basic needs" of displaced people.
However, Amnesty added, the government plan proved to be "inherently flawed" and "seems to have resulted in large-scale human rights abuses and forced evictions".
Officials defended the evictions saying such reports had a tendency to be "far from the truth" and the removals were "good for security as well as the image of the city".
"The government has the right to reclaim land and buildings belonging to its former institutions, so that it can offer the public service that is needed," Mogadishu local government spokesman Mohammed Yusuf told the BBC's Newsday programme.
"For that purpose, we move out people living on such lands or in those buildings... We tell them to put the national interest before the individual interest."
- Shelters flattened
The report says an eight-year old child and a mother of nine children were killed and several other residents were injured on 14 August when security forces opened fire on residents protesting against the eviction of a large settlement.
Some residents told Amnesty bulldozers had flattened their shelters, destroying their possessions and leaving them with nowhere to go.
When Amnesty delegates visited the area on 21 August they said they had seen evidence of a large number of shelters having been recently destroyed.
In March, Human Right Watch said displaced women in Mogadishu were reporting being gang-raped in the camps.
The group said managers of the camps - often allied to militias - were siphoning off food and other aid.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office a year ago in a UN-backed bid to end two decades of violence, with clan-based warlords, Islamist militants and its neighbours all battling for control of the country.
Al-Shabab, or "The Youth", is fighting to create an Islamic state in Somalia - and despite being pushed out of key cities in the past two years, it still remains in control of smaller towns and large swathes of the countryside and launches attacks in Mogadishu.
