The military says an officer and 10 soldiers were killed when they tried to thwart an attack on a water lift by armed fighters.
At least 11 members of the Egyptian army, including an officer, have been killed in an armed attack on the Sinai Peninsula, an army spokesman said, adding that security forces had “prevented a terrorist attack” on a water lift east of the Suez Canal.
Five security officers were also injured in the attack. “Terrorist elements have been pursued and besieged in an isolated area of Sinai,” the spokesman added in a statement Saturday.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi mourned the deaths of troops, pledging in a Facebook post to continue fighting insurgents and “eradicating terrorism.”
The military did not give more details or the exact location of the attack, but two residents of North Sinai told the Associated Press that the attack took place in the town of Kantara in the province of Ismailia, which stretches east of the Suez Canal.
No group has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s ambush, one of the deadliest attacks on Egyptian security forces in recent years.
Last week, suspected militants blew up a natural gas pipeline in the northern Sinai city of Bir al-Abd, causing a fire but no casualties.
Egypt is fighting armed groups loyal to ISIL (ISIL) in the Sinai Peninsula, which have intensified since the military ousted Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, in 2012.
The main focus of armed attacks
In August, the army announced that 13 fighters had been killed and nine of its soldiers “killed or wounded” during clashes in Sinai, without specifying when the fighting took place.
In recent years, pipelines carrying Egyptian oil and gas to neighboring Israel and Jordan have been the main focus of armed attacks.
In November, Egypt agreed with Israel to increase its forces around the border town of Rafah to quell armed groups.
The pace of armed attacks in Sinai and elsewhere has slowed to some extent since February 2018, when the military launched a major operation in the region, as well as parts of the Nile Delta and deserts along the country’s western border with Libya.
More than 1,000 suspected fighters and dozens of security officials have been killed since the start of operations, according to official figures.
The fight against armed groups in Sinai was largely hidden from the public eye, with journalists, foreigners and outside observers banned from the area.
The conflict has also been kept away from tourist resorts at the southern tip of the peninsula.
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