© Reuters / StringerFILE PHOTO: Debris is seen at a location where an attack took place on security forces in North Sinai, January 30, 2015.
The identities of those killed were not immediately clear, Reuters reported. Sources earlier said there were soldiers among the dead. The army also said that troops have been killed.
The assaults took place just south of the town of Sheikh Zuweid and targeted at least six military checkpoints, officials told AP. Two of the checkpoints were completely destroyed.
The militants took soldiers captive and seized weapons and several armored vehicles, the officials added, stating that the attackers used mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.
Meanwhile, Egypt's military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir, put the number of killed soldiers at 10, and said that fighting was still under way between armed forces and militants.
Samir's statement, posted on his official Facebook page, said that about 70 militants attacked five checkpoints in northern Sinai, and that Egyptian troops killed 22 of them. He said soldiers destroyed three all-terrain vehicles fitted with anti-aircraft guns.
Luxor terror attack: 'Change in #ISIS strategy- soft target course' (Op-Edge) http://t.co/4AjJ3bbfCi pic.twitter.com/uyO4e22cpy— RT (@RT_com) June 11, 2015Al Jazeera reported that at least 35 were killed, citing security sources and witnesses.
Islamic State's Egypt affiliate, Sinai Province, has claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attacks, according to a statement on Twitter. The group said it attacked more than 15 security sites, and carried out three suicide blasts.
Militants in northern Sinai have battled security forces for years, but intensified their attacks following the ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013.
The attacks come just two days after a car bomb killed Egypt's top prosecutor in Cairo. Hisham Barakat was assassinated in the capital's upscale Heliopolis neighborhood shortly after leaving his house.
ISIS beheads female civilians for the first time - monitor http://t.co/LaPIWVjoAB pic.twitter.com/5dP0tPVJ6h — RT (@RT_com) June 30, 2015The blast also injured two of Barakat's guards and five other people, ripping through two vehicles and shattering windows in several high-rise buildings.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has pledged to seek justice for Barakat's assasination.
"The judiciary is restricted by laws, and swift justice is also restricted by laws. We will not wait for that," Sisi said. Action will be taken within days "to enable us to execute the law, and bring justice as soon as possible," he added.
The Egyptian president blamed the violence on those "issuing orders from behind bars," referring to jailed members of the Muslim Brotherhood - Egypt's oldest Islamist group, which has been outlawed and declared a terrorist organization.
"If there is a death sentence [for those imprisoned], it will be carried out," Sisi added.
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties by Oded Yinon
This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in
KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742,
February 1982
"Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart,
countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in
their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt."
"(Regaining) the Sinai peninsula with its present and potential resources is therefore a
political priority which is obstructed by the Camp David and the peace agreements. The fault for that lies
of course with the present Israeli government and the governments which paved the road to
the policy of territorial compromise, the Alignment governments since 1967. The Egyptians
will not need to keep the peace treaty after the return of the Sinai, and they will do
all they can to return to the fold of the Arab world and to the USSR in order to gain
support and military assistance. American aid is guaranteed only for a short while, for
the terms of the peace and the weakening of the U.S. both at home and abroad will bring
about a reduction in aid. Without oil and the income from it, with the present enormous
expenditure, we will not be able to get through 1982 under the present conditions and we will have to act
in order to return the situation to the status quo which existed in Sinai prior to
Sadat's visit and the mistaken peace agreement signed with him in March 1979."
"Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other,
is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian
war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. "
"Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into
several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi
state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus
hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in
our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will
be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is
already within our reach today."
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Netanyahu (2014):
“Now both of these camps are enemies of the United States,” he continued. “And when your enemies are fighting each other, don’t strengthen either one of them. Weaken both.”
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