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Gunmen in Egypt kill guard outside Niger embassy

CAIRO (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead a security guard outside the embassy of Niger in Cairo early on Wednesday morning, the Egyptian interior ministry said in a statement. Gunmen in a car opened fire on guards outside the embassy of the Western African republic at around 1:00 a.m., the ministry said. Security services were searching for the perpetrators, it added. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Giza, which is part of the greater Cairo metro area. Egypt is facing an insurgency mainly based in North Sinai that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since mid-2013, when then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi after protests against his rule. While the deadliest attacks take place in Sinai, militants have targeted security services and planted bombs in Cairo and other cities, including a bomb that heavily damaged the Italian consulate in the capital earlier this month. (Reporting By Mostafa Hashem; Writing by Shadi Bushra; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)