Egyptian military kills 27 militants in the Sinai - World | The Star Online

Egyptian military kills 27 militants in the Sinai - World | The Star Online

CAIRO (Reuters) - Military air strikes killed 27 Islamic
militants in Egypt's Northern Sinai on Friday in one of the biggest security
operations in the region in months, security sources said.

Apache helicopters targeted
militants from the Sinai Province group, which pledges allegiance to Islamic
State, the ultra-hardline militants who have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, the sources said.

Sinai Province,
fighting to topple the Cairo
government, has claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks that killed more
than 30 members of the security forces in late January.

After that bloodshed,
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Egyptians the country faced a long, tough
battle against militants.

Also on Friday, a bomb
exploded along a street in Egypt's
second largest city Alexandria,
killing one person and wounding four others, security sources said.

Sinai-based militants have
killed hundreds of soldiers and police since then army chief Sisi toppled
president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013 after mass
protests against his rule.

A security crackdown on
Brotherhood supporters, in which hundreds were killed in the streets and
thousands arrested, has weakened the group.

On Friday, Brotherhood
supporters and security forces clashed in the Cairo suburb of Matariya, the state news
agency reported.

Eighteen people were killed
in the Brotherhood stronghold during the January 25 anniversary of the start of
the 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Egyptian authorities have
also jailed liberal activists, including some who gained prominence in the 2011
popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, on charges of violating a
law that effectively bans protests.