ISMAILIA, Egypt, (Reuters) – Islamic State’s Egypt wing claimed a series of attacks that killed at least 27 security personnel yesterday in some of the worst anti-government violence in months, after commemorations around the anniversary of the 2011 uprising turned deadly in the past week.
Egypt’s government faces an Islamist insurgency based in Sinai and growing discontent with what critics perceive as heavy-handed security tactics.
A series of tweets from the Sinai Province’s Twitter account claimed responsibility for each of the four attacks that took place in North Sinai and Suez provinces within hours of one another on Thursday night.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Egypt’s most active militant group, changed its name to Sinai Province last year after swearing allegiance to Islamic State, the hardline Sunni militant group that has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, drawing U.S.-led airstrikes.
Thursday’s first attack was a bombing targeting a military headquarters, base and hotel in the capital of North Sinai province that killed 25 and wounded at least 58, including nine civilians, security and medical sources said.
The flagship government newspaper, al-Ahram, said its office in the city of Al-Arish, which is situated opposite the military buildings, had been “completely destroyed,” although it was not clear if it had been a target.
Later, suspected militants killed an army major and wounded six others at a checkpoint in Rafah, followed by a roadside bomb in Suez city that killed a police officer, and an assault on a checkpoint south of Al-Arish that wounded four soldiers, security sources said.
After Sinai Province’s claim of responsibility, security sources said a suspected militant had been killed while attempting to plant a bomb at a power transformer in Port Said.
Sinai-based militants have killed hundreds of security officers since President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power following mass protests against his rule.
The military said in a statement on its Facebook page that the attacks were the result of a successful campaign to pressure the militants.
The U.S. State Department condemned the attack, saying in a statement: “The United States remains steadfast in its support of the Egyptian government’s efforts to combat the threat of terrorism in Egypt as part of our continuing commitment to the strategic partnership between our two countries.”
FRAGILE RECOVERY
The violence and civil unrest comes as Egypt is trying to burnish its image in the run-up to an investor’s summit in mid-March, to be followed by parliamentary elections.
The attacks in Al-Arish and Rafah continue a pattern of unrest in the remote but strategic Sinai Peninsula, which borders the Gaza Strip, Israel and Egypt’s Suez Canal.
But the less common attempts in Port Said and Suez, at opposite ends of the Canal, bring the insurgency nearer to a key source of hard currency for the cash-strapped state.
Income from the canal has not been hurt by the turmoil following the 2011 uprising to the same extent as foreign investment and tourism, and a planned second canal is meant to boost the waterway’s value to Egypt.
