Police deployed across Cairo ahead of protests

Thousands of police are deployed Monday across the Egyptian capital in anticipation of demonstrations to protest the government’s decision to surrender control of two strategic Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

Riot police backed by armored vehicles take up positions at Cairo’s Tahrir square, the epicenter of Egypt’s 2011 uprising, as well as on the city’s ring road, downtown and at a suburban square where at least 600 Muslim Brotherhood supporters were killed when security forces broke up their sit-in on August 14, 2013.

Monday’s planned demonstrations will be the second wave of protests this month against the decision to give up control of the islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. On April 15, about 2,000 demonstrators protested in downtown Cairo over the islands.

— AP