ISIS-affiliated militants launch wave of assaults in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula
In this Nov. 6, 2014, file photo, an Egyptian army armored vehicle stands on the on the Egyptian side of border town of Rafah, north Sinai, Egypt. Islamic militants on Wednesday, July 1, 2015, unleashed a wave of simultaneous attacks, including suicide car bombings, on Egyptian army checkpoints in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula, killing dozens of soldiers, security and military officials said.(AP Photo/Ahmed Abd El Latif, El Shorouk Newspaper, File) (Ahmed Abd El Latif/AP)
By Heba Habib and Loveday Morris-July 1
CAIRO — Islamic State-affiliated militants unleashed a wave of coordinated strikes on security checkpoints in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday, in one of the most significant attacks on the restive province in recent years.
At least 10 soldiers were killed in the large-scale assault in the restive region, the Egyptian army said. However, other sources put the casualty figures much higher. The Associated Press reported that at least 50 soldiers were killed.
The north Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid appeared close to slipping out of state control, with reports that gunmen were roaming the streets. Egyptian jets strafed the area as clashes continued on Wednesday afternoon, and Israel closed its border crossings with Egypt as a precautionary measure.
The breadth of the attack demonstrates the ability of militants in Egypt to maintain their reach in the country, despite years of battles with security forces. It came just two days after the country’s top prosecutor was assassinated in a bombing in the capital, Cairo.
The Islamic State has called for a “month of fire” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, urging suicide bomb attacks. Strikes by the group and its affiliates or suspected sympathizers have since shaken France, Kuwait and Tunisia.
A group named the Sinai Province, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in November, claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s assault. Its fighters attacked 15 checkpoints and carried out three suicide bombings, the group said in a statement circulated on social media. One blast hit an officer’s club in the city of Arish, it said.
An Egyptian army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Samir Abdel Aziz, said in a statement that around 70 militants launched attacks on five checkpoints in the north Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid. Thirty-nine militants were killed, according to the army.
The militants said they had surrounded the police station in the town. The siege was confirmed to Egyptian media by a local police commander.
The army dispatched reinforcements to the area, but highways were laced with roadside bombs, Egypt’s al-Ahram newspaper reported. It said injured soldiers were evacuated in armored vehicles because ambulances could not reach the town.
North Sinai, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip, has been the site of heated battles between the military forces and militant Islamists for years. But attacks have been increasing in frequency since the military backed the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, in July 2013. According to some military experts, the attacks also have been increasing in sophistication.
Sinai Province launched a similarly deadly attack in January on checkpoints in Arish and Sheikh Zuweid, resulting in the deaths of 44 army and police personnel.
The nature of the latest attack on Sheikh Zuweid is “new and worrying,” said Zack Gold, a visiting fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies who specializes in the Sinai Peninsula.
“This isn’t one of their regular hit-and-run attacks; they seem to be setting up for a longer haul,” he said, adding that it is currently unclear whether the group is attempting to take the town or draw the military into urban warfare. “Either one is unprecedented,” he said.
However, if the group is looking to take territory as the Islamic State has done in Iraq and Syria, it is unlikely to be able to hold its captured ground, Gold said.
“Egypt isn’t Iraq; this isn’t Anbar,” he said, referring to the Iraqi province where Islamic State militants have seized major cities. “The military is more cohesive and has more firepower and has the capability to get them out. The question is how many civilians will be harmed in the process?”
Morris reported from Baghdad.
Loveday Morris is a Beirut-based correspondent for The Post. She has previously covered the Middle East for The National, based in Abu Dhabi, and for the Independent, based in London and Beirut.
