Egyptian Authorities Heavily Strike Terrorist Groups in Sinai, Alexandria
Mohamed Abdu Hassanein Asharq Al Awsat 21 June 2017
https://english.aawsat.com/mohamedhassanein/news-middle-east/egyptian-authorities-heavily-strike-terrorist-groups-sinai-alexandria

Cairo- The Egyptian Air Forces launched on Monday an air strike that
targeted a gathering of leading figures from the ISIS-affiliated group
‘Sinai Province’ in North Sinai.

Egypt’s security forces killed 15 militants, 12 of them in airstrikes in the
restive Sinai peninsula and three in the coastal city of Alexandria,
according to two separate statements by the Interior Ministry and the armed
forces on Tuesday.

According to a statement issued from the Egyptian Armed Forces official
spokesperson Tamer El Refaay, the strike was launched following the army
leadership’s receiving information from intelligence apparatuses on the
gathering place of Sinai Province’s leading figures.

“The Egyptian Air Forces executed an air strike on a gathering place of a
number of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (currently known as ‘Sinai Province’)leading
figures; it targeted their gathering place, and it killed 12 militants from
the group and destroyed four vehicles” the army’s statement read.

The ‘Sinai Province’ group said it believes that all army and police forces
are apostates who should be killed; therefore, the group’s militants have
launched several suicide and ground attacks that have led to the death of
many army and police personnel.

In a separate development, Egypt’s Interior Ministry stated that that three
other militants belonging to a shadowy group calling itself the Hasm
Movement were killed in an apartment raid in Alexandria.

The ministry added that they were killed in an exchange of fire.

The militant group, which is suspected of links to the banned Muslim
Brotherhood, claimed responsibility for a deadly roadside bombing earlier
this week, in the Egyptian capital’s upscale suburb of Maadi, killing one
police officer and wounding four others. The group has previously claimed
several smaller attacks, mainly targeting policemen.

Insurgent attacks have dramatically increased in Egypt since the military
ouster of elected President Mohammed Morsi, ending the Islamist leader’s
divisive, one-year rule. The violence has been concentrated in the northern
Sinai Peninsula, where ISIS-linked militants are battling the army.