Unidentified assailants wound conscript in North Sinai - sources

Saturday 10-01-2015 10:11 PM
Unidentified assailants wound conscript in North Sinai - sources

Archive photo of wounded police officer in Sinai - Aswat Masriya

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CAIRO, Jan 10 (Aswat Masriya) - A 22-year-old conscript was shot in the back Saturday evening after unidentified assailants shot him in North Sinai's town of al-Arish, police sources said.

The assailants open fired at the conscript who was serving at his duty station at a natural gas station, the source added to Aswat Masriya. The police, who are combing the area, suggest that he was shot by a sniper rifle at a far distance, according to the sources.

The conscript was transferred to Arish Hospital.

Militants have stepped up attacks targeting security forces in Egypt, particularly in the Sinai Peninsula, since the army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013, which followed mass protests against his rule.

At least 30 military personnel were killed in a suicide blast which targeted a security checkpoint in Sinai's Sheikh Zuweid on October 24, 2014, in the worst militant attack since Mursi's ouster.

Egypt's most dangerous militant group, the Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, claimed responsibility for the attack in a video released on November 14, 2014, shortly after pledging allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria.

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