TEHRAN, August 25 -Egyptian police forces have killed four suspected terrorists who had tried to carry out an attack on a police checkpoint in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, a report says.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Egypt’s MENA state news agency, citing an unnamed informed source, said that a group of suspects, armed with heavy weapons, attempted to conduct an ambush on a security checkpoint on the coastal highway of North Sinai's el-Arish on Saturday.
It added that police forces confronted the militants, killing four of them while the rest fled the area, noting that some of them were armed with explosive belts and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher.
The report further said the attackers left behind four automatic weapons, 30 magazines, a number of RPGs, three explosive belts, a camera, a communication device, some hand grenades and 10 explosive charges that they had planned to use in the ambush.
Earlier this month, Egyptian police forces killed 12 suspected members of the Velayat Sinai Takfiri terror outfit affiliated to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group during an intense gunfight near el-Arish.
The terror group, previously known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to Daesh in 2014, and has mainly attacked security forces in the restive region of Sinai Peninsula since its inception in 2013. The terrorists have so far killed hundreds of members of security forces.
Operation Sinai 2018, which involves security forces mobilized from the air force, navy, army and police, aims to tighten control on border districts and clean up areas where there are terrorist hotbeds. The Sinai Peninsula has been under a state of emergency since October 2014.
According to figures provided by the military, more than 260 suspected terrorists and at least 35 soldiers have so far been killed in the Sinai 2018 anti-terror operation.
Terrorists have been targeting both government forces and civilians with terror attacks, taking advantage of the turmoil in Egypt that erupted after the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in a military coup in July 2013.
Source: Press TV