Egypt vows to wipe out ‘dens of terror’ after Daesh attacks

CAIRO — Egypt on Thursday pressed its campaign to crush an escalating insurgency in Sinai, vowing to wipe out "dens of terror" on the peninsula after a spectacular attack by militants killed dozens.

The violence poses a major test for President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the former army chief who has pledged to eliminate the militants.

The military deployed F-16 warplanes on Wednesday to bomb Daesh militants who battled security forces on the streets of the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid after launching a surprise dawn blitz on army checkpoints.

It said 17 soldiers and 100 militants had been killed, but medical and security officials said the death toll was at least 70 people, mostly soldiers, as well as dozens of jihadists.

On Thursday the military carried out search operations around Sheikh Zuweid, security officials said.

The military says it is “leading a vicious war against terrorism”.

“We have the will and determination to root out this black terrorism,” it said on Wednesday, adding: “We will not stop until Sinai is cleansed of all the dens of terror.”

On Thursday, telephone and Internet services were cut in Sheikh Zuweid along with electricity supplies, an AFP correspondent reported.

The White House condemned the unprecedented wave of attacks, which came two days after state prosecutor Hisham Barakat was assassinated in a Cairo car bombing, the most senior government official killed in the jihadist insurgency.

The US National Security Council said it “will continue to assist Egypt in addressing these threats to its security”.

Arab League chief Nabil Al Arabi urged the international community to “support the Egyptian government’s efforts in fighting terrorist groups”.

State-owned newspapers rallied around Egypt’s army.

“Victory or martyrdom,” said a front-page headline in Al Ghomuriya. “Revenge”, said a headline in Al Akhbar.

The military spokesman posted photographs on Facebook of militants killed in the fighting.

On Thursday gunmen on a motorbike shot dead a policeman in the town of Fayoum, south of Cairo, police said.

‘Terrorists moved freely’

The Sinai attacks were the most brazen in their scope since jihadists launched an insurgency in 2013 after the army, under Sisi’s command, overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Militants took over rooftops and fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station in Sheikh Zuweid after mining its exits to block reinforcements, a police colonel said.

“For hours the terrorists moved freely in the streets which they had mined,” Ayman Mohsen, a resident from Sheikh Zweid who witnessed Wednesday’s clashes, told AFP.

“They fired rockets and bullets at the army camp in Zuhour and the Sheikh Zuweid police station.”

“This is war,” a senior military officer told AFP. “It’s unprecedented, in the number of terrorists involved and the type of weapons they are using.”

The Daesh terror group said its jihadists surrounded the police station after launching attacks on 15 checkpoints and security installations using several suicide car bombers and rockets.

‘Army lacks expertise’

Troops regularly come under attack in the Sinai, where jihadists have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since Morsi’s overthrow.

Wednesday’s attack was similar to a series of ambushes on April 2 in which dozens of militants attacked checkpoints, killing 15 soldiers.

In January, a rocket and car bomb attack on a military base, police headquarters and residential complex for troops and police killed at least 24 people, most of them soldiers.

The attacks have come despite stringent security measures in the Sinai, including a night-time curfew and the creation of a buffer zone along the Gaza border.

Analysts said the army lacked expertise in fighting the insurgents.

“It’s not putting in the right units. The groups need to be chased by special forces and what the army is doing is that it is deploying regiments. Sending F-16s does not work,” said Professor Mathieu Guidere, a specialist on jihadist groups at France’s University of Toulouse.

Egypt responded to the growing insurgency on Wednesday by passing a controversial anti-terror law and requesting the appeals process be shortened, in measures it said would “achieve swift justice and revenge for our martyrs”.

Sisi has vowed to toughen laws and suggested fast-track executions following the state prosecutor’s assassination.