13 killed as Egypt strikes Sinai militants

Clashes break out in El Arish, Bir al-Abed and Suez Canal areas

Thirteen people were killed in a series of clashes in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula over the past 24 hours, Egyptian officials said on Tuesday.

Army troops, backed by helicopter gunships, attacked hideouts of Islamic militants in Sinai, killing nine and arresting 10, according to an Egyptian army official said, raising the death toll among suspected militants to 29 since the start of a major military offensive in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday.

The military also found explosives material, weapons and ammunition Monday in the villages of el-Mahdiya and Naga Shabana, south of the town of Rafah near the border with Gaza, he added.

Elsewhere, two people were killed and 10 wounded in clashes between soldiers and supporters of ousted former president Mohammed Morsi in the town of Bir al-Abed, according to AFP.

In separate incidents, one soldier was killed and two wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade struck an army checkpoint on the road to the airport next to the regional capital of El-Arish, and one soldier was killed by unknown gunmen in an attack near the Suez Canal.

The crackdown in Sinai comes after last week’s attempted assassination of the Egyptian interior minister. On Sunday, al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group Ansar Jerusalem claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was to avenge Muslims killed by security forces during their violent August 14 dismantlement of two sprawling encampments set up in Cairo by pro-Morsi supporters demanding his reinstatement.

“The Interior Ministry, the slaughterer, has seen death with its own eyes from a martyrdom operation carried out by a lion of Egypt’s lions,” the statement said. “What is coming will be worse.”

The army has killed around 100 Islamists in Sinai over the past two months, while militants have killed 58 policemen, 21 soldiers and 17 civilians, according to the AFP.