Egyptian army announces major operation in Sinai, Nile Delta

Military vows to ‘clean up terrorist hotbeds’ in bid to tamp down on jihadist forces

By AFP 9 February 2018, 11:03 am

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Illustrative: Egyptian army conscripts stand guard outside the Suez Canal University hospital in the eastern port city of Ismailia on November 25, 2017, where the victims of a bomb and gun assault on the North Sinai Rawda mosque a day earlier. (AFP Photo/Mohamed El-Shahed)

CAIRO, Egypt — The Egyptian army announced the launch on Friday of a major operation in the Nile Delta and the northern Sinai Peninsula, heart of a persistent Islamic State group insurgency.

Police and troops have been put on “maximum alert” for the duration of Operation Sinai 2018, the army said in a statement.

The goal is to tighten control of border districts and “clean up areas where there are terrorist hotbeds.”

The security forces have been increasingly targeted by jihadists since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Most of the violence has been in North Sinai province, but there have also been attacks on the military, police and even churches elsewhere, including Cairo.

In November, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is seeking re-election in polls next month, ordered the armed forces chief of staff to restore security in Sinai within three months after terrorists killed more than 300 worshippers at a mosque.

Jihadists have also attacked tourists, killing all 224 on board a Russian plane carrying holidaymakers in 2015.