Egyptian soldiers kill 29 militants in volatile Sinai Peninsula
Date 2015/9/8 17:11:08 | Topic: Egypt
|  Egyptian government forces have carried out separate operations in the country’s violence-plagued Sinai Peninsula, killing more than two dozen Takfiri militants over the past 24 hours, Press TV reports.
The army, in a statement released on Monday, said 29 militants were killed when the forces launched offensives against militants in the Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid, the city of el-Arish and the border town of Rafah.
In another development earlier on Monday, an Egyptian officer and a conscript lost their lives when a roadside bomb explosion ripped through their military vehicle in the Taweel al-Amir area south of Rafah.
Five others also sustained injuries in the act of terror.
Last month, a senior commander of Velayat Sinai, the militant group previously known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, was killed during an encounter with Egyptian army troops in the town of Sheikh Zuweid.
The shootout erupted after the militant commander, identified as Selim Suleiman al-Haram, refused to turn himself in to the soldiers that had surrounded his house.
The Egyptian military views the Sinai Peninsula as a sanctuary for extremists, who use the volatile region as a safe haven.
Velayat Sinai terrorists have claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in the Sinai Peninsula. Last November, the group pledged allegiance to the Daesh terrorist group, which is wreaking havoc primarily in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
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