ONLY nine days in, the Egyptian army claimed to have killed 415 militants in Operation “Right of the Martyr”, its campaign against jihadists in the Sinai peninsula that began in September 2015. Since then it has often boasted of killing dozens more in attacks; sometimes over 100. But in February the chief of military intelligence said the army had killed only around 500 in total since the operation began.
The body-count is often cited by the armed forces as evidence of their success against the long-running insurgency, which flared up in 2013 after Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, then a general, now president, toppled a democratically elected Islamist government. But the militants, many of whom pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS), continue to torment the region. They have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen, fired rockets into Israel and targeted Christian civilians.
More and more, the army is fighting the militants outside their stronghold in the north. In February and March it conducted raids on hideouts in the desert of central Sinai. This month, after several failed attempts, it says it took the insurgents’ base in Jebel Halal, a...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2oFcW3e
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