Five members of the Sudanese General Intelligence Service were killed and a sixth was injured on Tuesday in a raid that targeted a cell linked to the militant ISIS group in Khartoum, the service said in a statement.
Eleven suspects of different nationalities were arrested in the raid, which targeted several locations in the south of the capital, it said, describing them as “foreign terrorists”.
A group of the cell opened fire on the intelligence service force in one location and killed five of its members, including two officers, and injured one officer, the statement added.
“The group of four foreign terrorists have escaped, and they are being hunted down to be arrested,” the statement said.
The Cabinet confirmed the incident and pledged to provide support to the security services to help them carry out their duties.
No further details were revealed on the militant group or the nationalities of its members.
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok stressed that attempts to attack the security forces will not deter them from carrying out their “sacred duty in protecting the nation from foreign threats.”
In June, security forces announced the arrest of nine al-Qaeda members who were plotting attacks in the country.
It said they held Syrian passports, but among them were Tunisian and Chadian natives. Most of them were wanted in their home countries for committing terrorist attacks.
One of the detainees was the mastermind behind the Sousse terrorist attack in Tunisia in 2015.