Egypt says recent Sinai clashes killed 7 troops, 59 jihadist militants

At least seven Egyptian soldiers, including an officer, have been killed in clashes with jihadist militants in recent operations in restive northern Sinai Peninsula, the Egyptian army said Tuesday.

The military said in a statement that forces have killed at least 59 suspected militants and arrested another 142 suspected militants and criminals, and airstrikes destroyed 56 vehicles containing weapons and ammunition in the Western Desert, south and northeastern border areas.

The military statement gave no timeframe for the recent operations. It wasn’t possible to independently confirm the details as access to northern Sinai is heavily restricted.

Since the army toppled Egypt’s Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, hundreds of policemen and soldiers have been killed in attacks in the Sinai by jihadists and other extremist groups, including the Islamic State-affiliated Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis.

An explosion during an attack on an Egyptian police checkpoint in el-Arish, north Sinai, Egypt, on January 9, 2017. (Islamic State Group in Sinai/AP)

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has ordered a series of devastating operations meant to return calm to Sinai’s restive north, but troops have struggled to contain the Islamist insurgency.

Earlier this month, Sissi confirmed reports that Israel was assisting Egyptian battle jihadists in the Sinai, telling CBS News that military cooperation between Cairo and Jerusalem was “wide-ranging” and closer than it has ever been.

According to foreign reports, Israel shares intelligence with Cairo and the IDF regularly conducts drone strikes in the peninsula on Islamic State targets.

Jihadists in the Sinai regularly claim to have been targeted by Israeli aircraft.

More publicly, Israel in 2013 began to allow additional Egyptian forces into the peninsula, beyond the level permitted under the 1979 peace accord between the two countries.

A member of the Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate purporting to show Israeli-made munitions found in the rubble of an airstrike in a video released by the Amaq news agency on May 23, 2018. (screen capture, Amaq)

Ties between Egypt and Israel, once mortal enemies, have thawed in recent years. Since 2017, Sissi has twice met openly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a sign of improved relations between the countries, though normalization with Israel is still taboo among many Egyptians.

Talks between Netanyahu and Sissi have been thought to revolve around Gaza, which borders the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt has played a key role in attempts to broker calm along the Gaza frontier between Israel and the Hamas terror group.