ISMAILIA, Egypt, April 25 (Reuters) - Two Bedouin men in Egypt's Sinai peninsula died in a police chase on Wednesday and fellow tribesmen reacted by setting fire to dozens of rubber tyres on the main road near their village, security sources said.

The two men, named as Ahmed Abdel Rahim Salem and Khalil Suleiman Hamid, had driven through a police checkpoint in a truck without licence plates, ignoring orders to stop. When a police car gave chase, the two sides exchanged fire, they said.

The state news agency MENA said one of the men died when their truck overturned and the other died during surgery for a gunshot wound.

One of the men was wanted to serve a life term for killing a policeman while smuggling drugs on the Egyptian border, the agency added.

When they heard the news dozens of people from their village, el-Mahdiya in central Sinai, took to the streets in protest, the security sources said.

A tribal sheikh who asked not to be named said the village was known as a centre for smuggling arms, drugs and explosives, and police have not able to visit it because of armed resistance by some villagers.

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