"Terrorist" killed, 297 arrested in security raids in Sinai - spokesman

Saturday 27-12-2014 12:46 PM

(Archive) Army forces supervise the process of demolishing tunnels in North Sinai - Aswat Masriya

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CAIRO, Dec 27 (Aswat  Masriya) - Armed forces killed a "highly dangerous terrorist" and arrested 297 other suspects during raids on "terrorist hotbeds" in the Sinai Peninsula over the past two days, Mohamed Samir, armed forces spokesman said on Saturday.

Army forces destroyed 199 "terrorist headquarters", 14 tunnel openings, and two fuel storehouses, Samir added. Four improvised explosive devices were dismantled, and two roadside bombs targeting military and police personnel were discovered along al-Arish ring road and destroyed.

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, 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, shortly after pledging allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency and a nighttime curfew in parts of the Sinai Peninsula in response to the attack.

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