New security agency starts work in Egypt

CAIRO, April 27 (UPI) -- The ruling Egyptian authority announced that it started handing responsibility to a new security agency, government sources said.

The Egyptian Interior Ministry dissolved the country's notorious State Security Investigations Service in March.

Protesters had stormed the offices of the SSIS calling for the dissolution of the once-feared institution. The U.S. State Department in a 2005 report on Egypt said there were "credible reports" that linked the SSIS to acts of torture.

The military announced that it started giving responsibility to a new National Security Agency starting with a district headquarters in Cairo, Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm reports.

"The rest of the offices will be handed over during the coming period in order for the apparatus to start operations nationwide by May," a security source told the newspaper.

Interior Minister Mansour el-Essawy charged the new agency with protecting Egypt against external threats without undermining new found political freedoms in the country.