Eighty-nine Islamic State (IS) jihadists were killed during an army operation in the Sinai Peninsula in eastern Egypt, a spokesman for the armed forces said on Sunday, without elaborating.
Eight Egyptian soldiers were “killed or wounded,” according to a statement from the General Staff spokesman.
“As part of efforts to pursue and defeat terrorist elements” and “during the recent period”, the army “managed (…) to kill 89 dangerous jihadists (…) in northern Sinai”, referred to in the text.
It is not clear when exactly the operations were carried out during which those whom the staff calls jihadists were killed.
According to the press release, 404 improvised explosive devices, four explosive vests and four underground tunnels used by jihadists to infiltrate Egyptian territory from the neighboring Gaza Strip were destroyed.
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Cairo has for years accused the ruling Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip of supplying jihadist weapons to northern Sinai through underground tunnels across the border.
Macabre photos, capturing the corpses of jihadists, as well as photos of the confiscated weapons accompany the press release.
For years, Egyptian forces have been trying to root out extremist Islamist organizations operating in the northern Sinai Peninsula, particularly the Egyptian arm of the Islamic State.
The jihadist attacks intensified after the overthrow in 2013 by the army of the elected Islamist former president Mohamed Morsi.
Since February 2018, the army has been conducting large-scale operations against jihadists mainly in northern Sinai and the western desert of the country. About 1,060 jihadists and dozens of security forces have been killed in Sinai, according to official figures.
However, the army’s report could not be verified by independent sources, and access to northern Sinai remained restricted to journalists.
