UPDATED: 42 Soldiers Injured, 1 Civilian killed in Sinai’s Arish Attack
One civilian has been killed and 42 army soldiers and two civilians injured in a militant attack on a security camp in North Sinai’s Al-Arish, health ministry undersecretary for North Sinai Tarek Khater told Ahram Online.
On Tuesday morning, camp guards shot at a bomb-laden water truck, which attempted to storm their camp, before the vehicle exploded, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.
The interior ministry released a statement saying the truck driver was killed in the blast. The authorities have started investigations to determine the identity of the “suicide bomber,” it added.
The camp is located in El-Masaeed area of the city.
The civilian casualty was a worker at an adjacent electricity facility.
Some buildings around the camp were damaged during the blast.
On Monday, three policemen were killed and three others injured in a militant attack on their armored vehicle in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid.
Tuesday’s attack on the security camp marks the first major terror operation against a security post in the restive peninsula since Islamist militants killed 30 soldiers and civilians at a security checkpoint in October.
The attack comes days before an international investment summit scheduled to take place 13-15 March in Sharm El-Sheikh, South Sinai.
Egypt’s army has been fighting a decade-long militant Islamist insurgency that has spiked since the ouster of president Mohamed Morsi in summer 2013.
Hundreds of police and army forces were killed in violent militant attacks.
Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, an Islamist militant group, has claimed many of the attacks against the army and police in Sinai.
The army says it has intensified its operations against terrorists in the restive peninsula.
On Sunday, a military spokesman announced that forces have killed 70 suspected militants in North Sinai over the last week. He also said that 173 suspected militants were killed during February.
Egypt is also currently trying 213 alleged members of Sinai-based militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis in court over 54 separate crimes, including killing police and the attempted assassination of former interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim.
Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis had in November sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS) militant group, which has taken over vast areas of Syria and Iraq and now operates in Libya.
In recent months, militants have increasingly attacked economic targets in urban areas in Egypt, such as electricity pylons and mobile-network stores.
Civilians have often fallen victim during various violent attacks.
Source: Ahram Online
