Army: Six Egyptian soldiers killed in Sinai bombing
Security officials say bomb went off in peninsula’s north, a stronghold of the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis extremist group
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Six Egyptian soldiers were killed and two wounded in a bomb attack on their armored vehicle in the Sinai Peninsula on Sunday, the army said.
A militant group which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group in Iraq and Syria said it carried out the attack.
The bombing came near the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid, an area known as a stronghold of the jihadists, security officials said.
Egypt’s deadliest militant group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which pledged allegiance to IS in November renaming itself IS Sinai Province, claimed the attack on a Twitter account attributed to it.
“An armored personnel carrier for the army of the apostates was destroyed …killing and wounding all aboard,” it said.
The army has sent troops and armor to fight a dogged insurgency in the Sinai that has grown since then army chief and now President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi ousted his Islamist predecessor, Mohammed Morsi, in July 2013.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis says its repeated attacks on the security forces are in retaliation for a government crackdown against Morsi’s supporters that has left hundreds dead.
Thousands more have been imprisoned and dozens sentenced to death.
On Saturday, a Cairo court confirmed death sentences against Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie and 13 others for protest violence.
The Times of Israel Community.