American soldier shot in Egypt’s Sinai

A US soldier with the Multinational Force and Observers mission (MFO) in Egypt’s Sinai was wounded when gunmen shot at his camp late Monday, a security official said.

The restive Sinai Peninsula has witnessed a surge in militant attacks since the army ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

The security official said that the soldier was wounded in the arm and treated by medics inside the MFO camp, near the northern Sinai village of El-Joura.

Since Morsi’s ouster police have cracked down on his Islamist supporters, leaving at least 1,400 dead in street clashes and thousands imprisoned.

The Egyptian army has recently intensified its raids against Islamist fighters after militants killed 22 soldiers in an attack on a checkpoint near the western border with Libya.

The MFO is an independent multinational peacekeeping mission in Sinai, which borders Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

Its role is to monitor the implementation of the 1979 peace treaty that led to Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai.