...

Egypt arrests six suspects in deadly Sinai attack

Arab World Materials 11 August 2012 04:09 (UTC +04:00)
Egyptian military forces have arrested six militants suspected of involvement in a deadly weekend attack on border soldiers, as the army pursues a major crackdown in the Sinai Peninsula, a security official said Friday, dpa reported.
Egypt arrests six suspects in deadly Sinai attack

Egyptian military forces have arrested six militants suspected of involvement in a deadly weekend attack on border soldiers, as the army pursues a major crackdown in the Sinai Peninsula, a security official said Friday, dpa reported.

"During search and clampdown operations in the eastern area of the town of Sheikh Zuwaid (near the border with Gaza), the army arrested six key suspects wanted by the military and security agencies. They are being questioned," the official told dpa.

Another official told the state-run newspaper Al Ahram that the suspects had been detained during an early Friday raid on the area. On Tuesday, the army began a high-profile offensive, targeting the strongholds of militants suspected of killing 16 Egyptian soldiers in a brazen assault against a military outpost in the border town of Rafah, near the Gaza Strip, two days earlier.

President Mohammed Morsi Friday visited Sinai for the second time in less than a week.

Accompanied by senior military and security commanders, he inspected the site of attack on the soldiers, the deadliest against the army in decades.

Official television said the visit was aimed at following up on the army's offensive. Morsi renewed his pledge to bring the perpetrators to justice, added the broadcaster.

Additional troops, warplanes, tanks and armoured vehicles have since been deployed across Sinai, according to state media.

The army has said its campaign had resulted in initial success and would continue.

The operation is Egypt's largest since 1973, when it launched a surprise attack on Israel to recapture the peninsula, which Israel had seized six years earlier. The two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979.

Egypt sealed off Sinai after the attack on the soldiers, and announced the indefinite closure of the Rafah border crossing - Gaza's only outlet to the outside world.

The crossing was temporarily reopened on Friday to allow Palestinians arriving in Egypt from other countries to reach Gaza, state television reported.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin secured a promise from Sinai's tribal leaders to support the army's current offensive.

During a meeting with Gamal Eddin in the town of Al Arish in North Sinai, the tribesmen also backed a government plan to seal off illegal tunnels, believed to be used for smuggling people and weapons across the Egyptian-Gaza border.

Al Ahram said the army had destroyed 150 out of an estimated 1,200 tunnels along the border.

Sixty people identified as terrorists have been killed since the campaign started, added the paper, citing security officials.

The crackdown marks a U-turn in Egypt's response to security breakdown in Sinai.

Over the past year, Islamist militants are believed to have been responsible for several attacks on a pipeline that exports gas to Israel, as well as raids on police stations in the sparsely populated peninsula.

Tags:
Latest

Latest