The Bedouins set car tires and trucks on fire, and cut off a main road near the town of Balouzah in the Sinai Peninsula, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the Egypt-Israel border.

The official said the rally got out of hand when the Bedouins started hurling stones and opened fire at a passing government car, prompting police to respond. He said one of the four wounded was a policeman.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The violence was sparked by the recent arrests of 12 Bedouins, some of them wanted on smuggling and drug trafficking charges.

Many of Sinai's impoverished Bedouins, who complain of mistreatment at the hands of the government, make their living smuggling weapons, drugs and people across the border to Israel.

Authorities have also accused the Bedouins of aiding attackers behind several deadly bombings that have struck Sinai's resort towns since 2004. A total of 125 people died in the blasts in Sharm el-Sheik, Taba and Dahab.

In response to the attacks, officials rounded up thousands of local Bedouins, a move that intensified their feelings of mistreatment.