Egyptian soldiers died in a confrontation with terrorists near the Suez Canal. This assessment is one of the highest recorded by Egyptian forces for years.
Le Monde with AFP
Eleven soldiers were killed on Saturday in Egypt by thwarting a “terrorist” attack near the Suez Canal in Sinai, northeast peninsula of the country prey to a jihadist insurrection, reported the army.
“A group of Takfiris elements launched an attack on a military hydraulic pumping station,” a military statement said. The soldiers “pushed them back and fights followed in which eleven soldiers were killed and five wounded,” said the text. The soldiers “continue to continue the terrorists” up to “an isolated region of Sinai”, according to the same source. The term “takfiris” is generally used to designate the Sunni radical jihadist or Islamist groups.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi assured on Facebook that “these terrorist operations will not end the determination of the country and its army to cut the evil of terrorism at the root”. Washington for his part condemned a “terrorist attack”. “For decades, the United States has been and have been a solid partner in Egypt in the fight against terrorism in the region,” said spokesman for the State Department Ned Price in a statement.
Many terrorist acts in Sinai
The army and the police launched in February 2018 a vast “anti -terrorist” operation in the Sinai peninsula where radical cells are rampant, some of which have made allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group. They also fight radical insurgents in the Western desert, between the Nile Valley and the border with Libya. In Sinai, attacks are particularly focused on one point: the pipelines and gas pipelines that supply Israel and Jordan. Regularly, the army announces that it has killed jihadists in this area.
In all, more than a thousand jihadists and dozens of security forces were killed, according to official figures-but no independent source assessment is available and North Sinai is prohibited for journalists . The last attack of importance in Cairo dates back to May 2020, when an attack targeted the pyramids of Guizeh in the southwest of the capital, making 17 injured a month before Egypt welcomed the African Cup of Football nations.
In August 2019, still in Cairo, around twenty people were killed when a car loaded with explosives had struck three other vehicles at high speed, causing a huge explosion. The following month, a police officer and seven members of a “terrorist cell” were killed in Cairo fire exchanges. These jihadists were preparing, according to the authorities, to attack Christians during Easter celebrations.