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Friday, April 3, 2015
Medical source: Sinai deaths up to 22 in attack on five Egyptian army checkpoints

Updated: Medical source: Sinai deaths up to 22
Thu, 02/04/2015 - 16:19 Al-Masry Al-Youm
http://www.egyptindependent.com//news/updated-medical-source-sinai-deaths-22

The attack on five army checkpoints along the Arish-Rafah road in North
Sinai has left 22 dead, including 18 soldiers and four civilians, a medical
source in North Sinai said Thursday in an update to the numbers declared
hours earlier.

Eye-witnesses told Al-Masry Al-Youm that four vehicles with over 20 gunmen
attacked the recently-erected checkpoints along the Arish-Rafah road with
RPGs and mortars. The crossfire lasted over 20 minutes, the newspaper
reported.

Army spokesperson Mohamed Samir had stated that 15 of the attackers were
killed as the forces fired back.

The source said more than 30 others, inculdung civilians and troopers, were
wounded.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but militants
who support Islamic State, the ultra-hardline group that controls parts of
Iraq and Syria, have carried out similar operations in the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt is gradually recovering from years of political turmoil following the
ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and foreign investors are starting
to return. But the biggest Arab state still faces security challenges on
several fronts.

Sinai-based militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and police since the
army toppled Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood -- Egypt's first
freely-elected president -- in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

That insurgency has spread to other parts of Egypt though bombing attacks in
cities and towns are usually far less dramatic.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has spearheaded an Arab initiative to
create a joint military force to confront regional security challenges, says
militants based next door in chaotic Libya also pose a threat to Egypt.

In January, Islamic State's Egypt wing, Sinai Province, claimed
responsibility for a series of attacks that killed at least 30 people.

Then-army chief Sisi removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power in mid-2013
and mounted a fierce crackdown on the Islamist movement. Security forces
killed hundreds in the streets and arrested thousands, neutralising what was
once Egypt's most organised political group.

But Sinai Province and other militant organisation who are violently opposed
to the US-backed government have proven resilient.

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