AA / Cairo
The Egyptian army announced on Saturday the death of 11 soldiers, including an officer, following having “thwarted a terrorist attack” which targeted a water lifting station in the “East of the Suez Canal” zone, in the northeast of the country.
Army spokesman Colonel Gharib Abdel Hafez said in a statement: “A group of takfiri elements attacked a water lift point (a security barrier for a station) to the east of the canal”, before the spokesman specified the location later in West Sinai.
“He was engaged and fought by elements (of the army) responsible for operating in the area,” he added.
The spokesperson claimed that the attack “resulted in the martyrdom of an officer (without specifying his rank) and 10 soldiers.
He explained that “terrorist elements are tracked down and besieged in an isolated area of Sinai (northeast)”, without providing further details on the results of these clashes.
“The armed forces persist in their relentless efforts to eliminate terrorism and uproot it,” the same source added.
As of 5:41 p.m. GMT, there had still been no claim as to who was responsible for the attack.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a statement: “These treacherous terrorist operations will not undermine the resolve and determination of the people of this country and its armed forces in their endeavor to uproot the terrorism”.
This is the first official announcement of an armed operation targeting a civil services site in the Sinai in years. Most of the terrorist attacks have been concentrated in areas where Egyptian army and police forces are deployed.
According to some observers, the pace of terrorist operations targeting the police and the army in the Sinai has slowed considerably, following the announcement of the success of a comprehensive military operation once morest “terrorism” by the Egyptian authorities.
The military operation was recently followed by operations aimed at bringing citizens back to their areas of residence, at a time when the government is considering increasing the number of reconstruction and development projects in the region.
* Translated from Arabic by Mounir Bennour.
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