Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — The Egyptian military has captured a large cache of anti-aircraft weapons delivered by convoys from Sudan and Libya.

On Aug. 5, five policemen and four suspected insurgents were killed in a battle on the Matrouh highway, the usual convoy route along the Mediterranean coast. The sources said the insurgents attacked two security checkpoints on Matrouh.

The military said it raided a suspected insurgency stronghold in the southern province of Aswan and found missiles and anti-aircraft shells.

In all, 25 surface-to-air missiles and 500 anti-aircraft artillery were seized.

“There was a tip to the police, and this was relayed to the military,” a security source said.

The weapons cache, seized on Aug. 6, was one of the largest yet reported in the war against the Muslim Brotherhood, ousted in a military coup in July 2013. The military said the cache was found in the Naqra Valley.

The sources said the weapons were believed to have been acquired from neighboring Sudan. They said the military foiled weapons convoys from Sudan, ordered by the Brotherhood over the last year.

Most of the weapons ordered by Islamist insurgents were said to come from Libya. The military and security forces have blocked more than a dozen weapons convoys that contained missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

  artillery shells from insurgency stronghold, Aswan, Egypt seizes large cache of anti-aircraft weapons from Sudan, Libya, Muslim Brotherhood, Naqra Valley