Category: North Africa

[Reuters] An Egyptian naval vessel has caught fire in the eastern Mediterranean during a clash with fighters affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Sinai Peninsula, the military said. Inside Story – Has Sisi’s Egypt failed on security? The patrol boat spotted the fighters from the Sinai Province group on the coast of Rafah on Thursday and engaged them, the military’s spokesman said in a statement. The boat went up in flames during an ensuing firefight. The military said it suffered no casualties, in the attack, which Sinai Province later claimed on Twitter. A series of pictures released by the group, showed a missile approaching and striking the vessel causing a large explosion. A witness in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, just across the border with the Egyptian town of Rafah, said the boat was struck at least three kilometres from the shore. "We […]

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Photo A funeral on Thursday in Ashmoun, in the Nile Delta, for First Lt. Mohamed Ashraf, one of the soldiers killed Wednesday in a militant attack in the Sinai Peninsula. Credit Sameh Abouhasan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — Egypt ’s military killed 23 militants in the northern Sinai Peninsula early Thursday, a senior security official said, as the government sought to reassert control and eradicate what it called the area’s “terrorist dens” after the largest assault there by jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State. That assault, on Wednesday, stunned officials in President Abdel Fattah el-Sisis’s government with its scale and audacity. Militants belonging to a group calling itself Sinai Province launched coordinated attacks on military checkpoints in the northern Sinai before storming a town and occupying it for hours. The military carried out airstrikes with F-16 warplanes on the town, Sheikh Zuwaid, to force a militant retreat. A […]

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CAIRO — Two years after President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a military takeover promising to restore order and security in Egypt , he faces a rising jihadist insurgency that has shaken the stability of this most populous Arab state, a key ally of the United States. Just two days after militants assassinated Egypt ’s top prosecutor on a Cairo street, the military on Wednesday called in F-16 war planes and helicopters to beat back a coordinated assault in Northern Sinai by a jihadist group affiliated with the Islamic State. Egyptian soldiers were killed, police officers were trapped in their posts, ambulances were paralyzed by booby-trapped roads and residents were warned to stay indoors by jihadists roaming on motorcycles. The scale and complexity of the attack far exceeded any of the group’s previous strikes in Sinai, raising the possibility that it has begun to coordinate more closely with the Islamic […]

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Egypt’s military spokesman has said the situation in North Sinai is "100 percent under control", following clashes that reportedly left more than 100 people dead. The spokesman, Mohamed Sanir, was speaking by phone to state television on Wednesday. A group pledging allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, the Province of Sinai, had claimed responsibility for attacks on more than 15 security sites. Egypt’s army said more than 100 fighters and 17 soldiers were killed after simultaneous assaults on military checkpoints in North Sinai, in the deadliest fighting in years in the province bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip. Some security sources put the death toll for army and police much higher. After a day of fighting, which involved F-16 jets and Apache helicopters, the army said it would not stop its operations until it had cleared the area of all "terrorist concentrations". Security […]

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A statement on the Brotherhood’s website said the group held President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi responsible for the killings [YouTube] The Muslim Brotherhood has warned of "serious repercussions" and has called on its supporters to "rise in revolt" after Egyptian police killed 13 of its members. Egyptian police raided an apartment in the Cairo suburb of 6th of October on Wednesday and killed 13 of the outlawed group’s leading members , including a former member of parliament, Nasser al-Hafy, security sources and a member of the group said. The Brotherhood members were reportedly meeting to discuss sponsoring the families of detainees when the police stormed the building. Egypt’s interior ministry, however, said the men were fugitive leaders who were plotting attacks – something the group denies – and said the group included two men who had previously been sentenced to death. Inside Story – Has Egypt’s Sisi failed on security? In […]

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CAIRO (AP) — The latest news on the near-simultaneous militant attacks in Egypt’s restive northern Sinai Peninsula that have killed at least 30 soldiers (all times local): 11:30 a.m. Egyptian security and military officials say a heavy battle is taking place in the northern Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid, where militants are besieging the town’s main police station. The fighting is part of a wave of coordinated militant attacks launched on Wednesday morning in restive Sinai, just two days after the country’s state prosecutor was assassinated in Cairo. The officials say that as part of the attacks, a suicide car bombing destroyed one military checkpoint while another was first hit by mortar shells and rocket propelled grenades, then assaulted by militants. — 10:35 a.m. Egypt’s military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir, says fighting is still underway in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula, where militants unleashed a wave of attacks […]

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CAIRO — A powerful roadside bomb killed Egypt ’s top prosecutor as he drove to work Monday morning, broadening the violent insurgency that militants have been waging against the government for two years. The prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, was the most senior civilian official to be killed in Egypt since the insurgency began in the fall of 2013, after the military ousted the country’s first freely elected president , Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood . The explosion hit Mr. Barakat’s small convoy around 10:30 a.m. Monday as it left the Heliopolis neighborhood near Cairo International Airport. The blast set several cars on fire and shattered windows along the street, injuring at least eight other people. Mr. Barakat sustained a lacerated liver and was rushed to a hospital, where he died from internal bleeding, according to the health ministry. The daylight assassination of one of his top officials was a […]

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