Egyptian troops clash with gunmen in Sinai

Egyptian security officials said police and military forces clashed with armed tribesmen in a north Sinai village by the border with Israel, leaving one gunman dead.

Egypt’s government has built up security forces in northern Sinai as part of an effort to secure the release of six policemen and a border guard kidnapped last week by suspected militants.

The clashes Tuesday came when troops and police, backed by helicopter gunships, were conducting a sweep through a number of villages along the border with Israel. The officials said the forces came under fire from gunmen in vehicles, triggering the clashes.

One official said three of the gunmen were arrested. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Dozens of military and police armored vehicles, backed by helicopters and rocket launchers, poured into Sinai on Monday and Tuesday, beefing up the security presence in the volatile peninsula.

Islamist President Mohammed Morsi said all options were open to free the seven men. Officials have said mediators were in touch with the captors.

Egyptian government sources said they know the kidnappers, who are suspected Islamist militants. They said the group abducted the hostages following reports that a jailed colleague was tortured in prison.

The militants are demanding the release of over twenty prisoners who were arrested over the past two years for their involvement in attacks on security personnel and a bank.

The seven hostages were shown blindfolded and pleading for their release in a video that was posted to the Internet on Sunday. In the video the captured men begged Egyptian authorities to agree to a prisoner exchange in order to save them from the “unbearable torture” they were suffering at the hands of their captors. The hostages also invoked the story of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas for five years before ultimately being swapped for over a thousand Palestinian prisoners.

The crisis appears to be eroding the already shaky authority of the state in Sinai.

Disgruntled border policemen there have gone on strike, shutting crossings into the Gaza Strip and Israel to demand the release of their colleagues. Hundreds more policemen joined them Monday, closing down police stations in North Sinai’s capital el-Arish and other towns.

The presence of heavy Egyptian forces is contentious because under the terms of the peace treaty with Israel peninsula to be kept as a partially demilitarized buffer zone, monitored by the Multinational Force and Observers.

The buildup could mark the largest militarization in the peninsula since August 2012, when Egypt carried out a massive operation in an effort to clean the area of Islamist terrorists following an attack on a Rafah border police station that left 16 dead. At the time Egypt sent armored vehicles and tanks to the region with Israeli approval although the latter were later withdrawn.