Attacks kill 3 kids, woman in Egypt’s Sinai
Two separate attacks have left three children and a woman dead in Egypt’s restive region of Sinai Peninsula.
In one incident on Saturday, a shell struck a house in the northern Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid, where government troops were battling ISIL-affiliated militants, killing two children and a woman, officials said.
The blast also left a woman and a teenage girl seriously wounded.
In a separate incident on Saturday, a roadside bomb went off in the far-northern town of Rafah, killing a five-year-old child. Three more children and a woman were wounded in the explosion.
On Wednesday, violence escalated in Sheikh Zuweid, where the army said 17 soldiers and 100 militants had been killed. However, other sources gave a different death toll, claiming that at least 70 people – mostly soldiers – as well as dozens of militants had been killed.
The militancy in Sinai is regarded as a tough challenge to Egypt’s junta-backed government.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is a former army chief, has pledged to eliminate the militants in the peninsula.
He is currently on an unannounced visit to the Sinai in an effort to raise the troops’ spirits following a wave of deadly attacks on security forces by the militants, his office said.
“President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is inspecting troops and police in the North Sinai,” said his office.
“I have come to salute the heroes of the armed forces and to express to them my recognition,” he was quoted by the army’s spokesman as saying.
Egyptian television showed Sisi touring an army base and inspecting weapons captured from the militants.
Security and judiciary officials have been regularly targeted by militants not only in Sinai but in the capital, Cairo, as well since Sisi ousted the country’s first democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi two years ago.
Most of the attacks are carried out by an extremist group calling itself Valayat Sinai.
The Takfiri group was formerly named Ansar Beit al –Maqdis; however, it changed its name after pledging allegiance to the Takfiri ISIL group last November.
ISIL has occupied huge swathes of land in Syria and Iraq.
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