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- 11 Egyptian military troopers had been killed on Saturday.
- It’s the heaviest lack of troops in Sinai.
- The US condemned the terrorist assault.
Eleven Egyptian troopers had been killed on Saturday making an attempt to thwart a “terrorist” assault on the Suez Canal zone abutting the Sinai peninsula, a hotbed of jihadist exercise, the military mentioned.
READ | ISIS claims assault on Egypt fuel pipeline
It was the heaviest lack of life the military had suffered in years in its long-running marketing campaign in and across the Sinai in opposition to militants loyal to the Islamic State group.
5 troopers had been additionally wounded within the firefight on the japanese financial institution of the canal, the military mentioned, including safety forces had been “persevering with to chase the terrorists and encompass them in an remoted space of the Sinai”.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pledged on Fb:
These terrorist operations won’t defeat the dedication of the nation and the military to proceed uprooting terrorism.
Washington condemned the “terrorist assault within the Sinai concentrating on members of the Egyptian army” and expressed its condolences to the victims’ households.
“For many years, the USA has been and stays Egypt’s robust accomplice in confronting terrorism within the area,” State Division spokesperson Ned Worth mentioned in an announcement.
Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has been gripped by an armed insurgency for greater than a decade, which peaked after the ouster of late Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.
In February 2018, the military and police launched a nationwide operation in opposition to militants targeted on North Sinai.
Greater than a thousand suspected militants and dozens of safety personnel have been killed for the reason that begin of operations, based on official figures.
In November, Egypt agreed with Israel to spice up its troop numbers across the border city of Rafah to quell IS militants.
In August, the military mentioned 13 militants had been killed and 9 of its troopers had been “killed or wounded” throughout clashes within the Sinai, with out indicating when the preventing had taken place.
In recent times, pipelines carrying Egyptian oil and fuel to neighbouring Israel and Jordan have been the first targets of rebel assaults.
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