An Israeli drone strike killed five suspected Islamic militants and destroyed a rocket launcher in Egypt’s largely lawless Sinai Peninsula on Friday, two senior Egyptian security officials said, describing a rare Israeli operation carried out in its Arab neighbor’s territory.
An al-Qaeda-linked group active in the Sinai Peninsula yesterday said its fighters were the target of a rare Israeli drone strike into Egyptian territory.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, in a statement posted on a militant Web site yesterday, said that four of its members were killed in the Friday attack as they were preparing a cross-border rocket strike into Israel.
It said the dead were from Egyptian Sinai tribes. The group said the rocket squad’s leader escaped.
The conflicting death tolls could not be reconciled.
The attack came a day after Israel briefly closed its airport in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, close to the Sinai, in response to unspecified security warnings.
Eilat was previously targeted by rocket fire from the Sinai.
Israel maintained official silence about the strike, suggesting that if the Jewish state was involved, it might be trying to avoid embarrassing the Egyptian military.
An Egyptian military spokesman later denied the report, but did not provide another cause for the explosion.
DAMAGE
Egypt’s official MENA news agency said an explosion destroyed a rocket launcher set up near the border to launch attacks against Israel, and at least five Islamic militants were killed. However, it did not elaborate.
Bodies of the slain militants were charred from the blast, an Egyptian official said.
He said four of the dead appeared to belong to a family called el-Menaie whose members are wanted for several terrorism-related charges.
“Next to the bodies, there were rockets and a motorcycle that turned into pieces,” the official said.
He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
A tribal leader in the area said that an Egyptian helicopter flew over the site a few minutes after the drone strike.
The Egyptian security officials said that the drone had been flying near the site of the attack since early on Friday on the Israeli side of the border and fired from there.
Those on the Egyptian side of the border could hear the drone buzzing overhead for hours, they said.
The site of the strike sits about 5km from the Israeli border.
An Israeli drone attack in the Sinai could signal a significant new level of security cooperation between the two former foes following a military coup that ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi last month.
BLIND EYE
The military has alleged that Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement had turned a blind eye to Islamic militants in the Sinai.
Meanwhile, Morsi’s ouster, which came after mass protests demanding he step down, has triggered a rise in attacks against security forces on the peninsula, raising fears that extremists could exploit Islamist anger to spread their insurgency.
The Egyptian security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Israeli attack was launched in cooperation with Egyptian authorities despite past insistence that the government would not allow anyone to use its territories to launch attacks against jihadi groups.
Israel has increased surveillance along the Egyptian border over the past two years, and is building a barrier along the 230km frontier to keep out militants and African migrants.
The Israeli military said only that it was looking into the report after being contacted by the Associated Press.
Egyptian military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Mohammed Ali initially said on his official Facebook page that security forces were investigating two explosions in el-Agra.
He later issued a statement denying “in form and substance any attacks from the Israeli side inside Egyptian territories” and saying the claim of cooperation was “baseless.”
Egypt’s military and security forces have long been engaged in a battle against Islamic militants in the northern half of the peninsula.
Amid the political turmoil facing the nation in the more than two years since longtime autocratic Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was ousted, Egypt has adhered to a 1979 peace deal with Israel.
However, militants have fired rockets toward Eilat, a major destination for domestic and international tourists on Israel’s southern tip.
SECURITY CONCERNS
Israel briefly closed its airport there on Thursday, citing unspecified security concerns.
An Egyptian security official said officials warned Israel about the possibility of rocket strikes.
The official said Egyptian authorities received intelligence suggesting terrorist groups planned to fire missiles on Friday at Israel, as well as at locations in northern Sinai and the Suez Canal.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of