Tehran, YJC. The Foreign Ministry has censured terrorist attacks across Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula.
The sort of terrorist moves are carried out to keep Muslim and regional
countries busy with secondary issues and distrac them from the main and top
priority of the Muslim world that is support for the Palestinian people, Marzieh
Afkham Foreign Ministry spox said on Friday.
She noted the importance of strengthening cooperation and solidarity among
countries in the region to battle extremism and terrorism.
Egyptian security officials said at least 44 people were killed and over 80
others injured after militants carried out attacks on army and police targets
as well as an office of a daily newspaper in the strife-stricken Sinai
Peninsula on Thursday.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a massive car bomb
detonated outside the headquarters of the 101st Brigade of the Egyptian army in
the city of el-Arish, situated 344 kilometers (214 miles) northeast of the
capital, Cairo, late on Thursday, leaving scores of people killed and wounded.
Separately, an office of Egypt’s most-widely-circulated daily, al-Ahram,
was "completely destroyed” in an assault by gunmen.
Two Egyptian army officers were also injured when an army convoy was
targeted with mortar shells in the border town of Rafah.
Over an hour later, there were reports of another ambush on an army convoy
just south of Rafah. Gunmen also reportedly attacked a checkpoint in Rafah.
The so-called Ansar Bait al-Maqdis militant group claimed responsibility for
Thursday's attacks.
The Egyptian military considers the Sinai Peninsula a safe haven for gunmen
who use the region as a base for their "acts of terror.”