Egypt airstrikes kill 23 militants in Sinai
By Staff writer | Al Arabiya News
Thursday, 2 July 2015
Egypt launched airstrikes on Islamist militant targets in the Sinai peninsula on Thursday, killing 23 fighters a day after the deadliest clashes in the region in years, Reuters reported security sources as saying. The sources said those killed had taken part in Wednesday’s fighting in which 100 militants and 17 soldiers, including four officers, were killed, according to the army spokesman. Sinai-based insurgents, affiliates of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have stepped up attacks on soldiers and police since then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi toppled Islamist President Mohammed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.Sisi, now Egypt’s elected president, says the pro-ISIS group Sinai Province, and other militant factions, pose an existential threat to Egypt, other Arab states and the West.
Bank guard shot dead in Egypt
In the latest attacks against Egyptian security forces, officials said gunmen shot and killed a security guard in front of a bank in Fayoum, 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Cairo. It was not immediately clear if Thursday’s shooting was a criminal or militant attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media. This week has been especially troubling for Egypt, a strategic U.S. ally which has a peace treaty with Israel and controls the Suez Canal, a vital global shipping lane.The militants’ assault, a significant escalation in violence in the peninsula between Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Suez Canal, was the second major attack in Egypt this week.
On Monday, a car bomb killed the prosecutor-general in Cairo, the highest-profile official to die since the insurgency began.
Egypt military ‘in full control’ Meanwhile, Egypt’s military spokesman said Wednesday that the situation in North Sinai was back in control.Mohamed Sanir, who was speaking by phone to state television, said that the northern part of the peninsula was “100 percent under control.”Sanir’s statements came shortly after the ISIS-linked militant group struck Egyptian army outposts in Sinai.Wednesday’s fighting on more than 15 security sites was the deadliest in decades.It followed the assassination of Egypt’s chief prosecutor and a vow by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to step up the legal battle against Islamic militants.
(With Reuters and Associated Press)
Egypt vows to wipe out ‘dens of terror’ after ISIS attacks
Jay Deshmukh/Abdelhalim Abdallah/ Agence France Presse
02 July/15
CAIRO: Egypt Thursday pressed its campaign to crush an escalating insurgency in Sinai, vowing to wipe out “dens of terror” on the peninsula after a spectacular attack by jihadis killed dozens. The violence poses a major test for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former army chief who has pledged to eliminate the militants. The military deployed F-16 warplanes Wednesday to bomb the ISIS fighters who battled security forces on the streets of the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid after launching a surprise dawn blitz on army checkpoints. It said 17 soldiers and 100 militants had been killed, but medical and security officials said the death toll was at least 70 people, mostly soldiers, as well as dozens of jihadis. On Thursday the military carried out search operations around Sheikh Zuweid, security officials said.
The military says it is “leading a vicious war against terrorism.””We have the will and determination to root out this black terrorism,” it said Wednesday, adding: “We will not stop until Sinai is cleansed of all the dens of terror.”On Thursday, telephone and Internet services were cut in Sheikh Zuweid along with electricity supplies, an AFP correspondent reported. The White House condemned the unprecedented wave of attacks, which came two days after state prosecutor Hisham Barakat was assassinated in a Cairo car bombing, the most senior government official killed in the jihadi insurgency.
The U.S. National Security Council said it “will continue to assist Egypt in addressing these threats to its security.”Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi urged the international community to “support the Egyptian government’s efforts in fighting terrorist groups.”State-owned newspapers rallied around Egypt’s army. “Victory or martyrdom,” said a front-page headline in Al-Ghomuriya. “Revenge,” said a headline in Al-Akhbar.
The military spokesman posted photographs on Facebook of militants killed in the fighting.
On Thursday gunmen on a motorbike shot dead a policeman in the town of Fayoum, south of Cairo, police said. The Sinai attacks were the most brazen in their scope since jihadis launched an insurgency in 2013 after the army, under Sisi’s command, overthrew Islamist president Mohammad Morsi. Militants took over rooftops and fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station in Sheikh Zuweid after mining its exits to block reinforcements, a police colonel said.
“For hours the terrorists moved freely in the streets which they had mined,” Ayman Mohsen, a resident from Sheikh Zweid who witnessed Wednesday’s clashes, told AFP. “They fired rockets and bullets at the army camp in Zuhour and the Sheikh Zuweid police station.”
“This is war,” a senior military officer told AFP. “It’s unprecedented, in the number of terrorists involved and the type of weapons they are using.”ISIS said its jihadis surrounded the police station after launching attacks on 15 checkpoints and security installations using several suicide car bombers and rockets.
Troops regularly come under attack in the Sinai, where jihadis have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since Morsi’s overthrow.
Wednesday’s attack was similar to a series of ambushes on April 2 in which dozens of militants attacked checkpoints, killing 15 soldiers.
In January, a rocket and car bomb attack on a military base, police headquarters and residential complex for troops and police killed at least 24 people, most of them soldiers. The attacks have come despite stringent security measures in the Sinai, including a night-time curfew and the creation of a buffer zone along the Gaza border.
Analysts said the army lacked expertise in fighting the insurgents.
“It’s not putting in the right units. The groups need to be chased by special forces and what the army is doing is that it is deploying regiments. Sending F-16s does not work,” said Professor Mathieu Guidere, a specialist on jihadi groups at France’s University of Toulouse.
Egypt responded to the growing insurgency on Wednesday by passing a controversial anti-terror law and requesting the appeals process be shortened, in measures it said would “achieve swift justice and revenge for our martyrs.”Sisi has vowed to toughen laws and suggested fast-track executions following the state prosecutor’s assassination.
