Extremists target police personnel in North Sinai

Two policemen and one civilian were killed in four separate attacks in the peninsula that show that members of extremist groups in Egypt 'are losing their mind', experts say.

By Ahmed al-Sharqawi in Cairo

2017-11-21

Egyptian clerics pray over the bodies of soldiers, who were killed a day earlier in the restive Sinai Peninsula in an attack by the 'Islamic State of Iraq and Syria', during a funeral ceremony in the city of al-Mansurah on July 8th. [Ahmad Hammad/AFP]

Unidentified gunmen have carried out four separate attacks against members of Egypt's security forces in North Sinai over the weekend, killing two policemen and one civilian and wounding several others, according to local media reports.

On Sunday (November 19th), police Sgt. Amer Ibrahim was killed in an attack by gunmen on a checkpoint in Sheikh Zuweid.

The gunmen fled the scene, and no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

In another attack Sunday in Sheikh Zuweid, unidentified assailants rigged the car of Mahmoud Mohammed Salam, a resident of Sinai known for his co-operation with the army against the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIS).

The car exploded as soon as it was turned on, killing Salam and injuring his children who were standing nearby.

Meanwhile in al-Arish, policeman Ibrahim Ragab al-Bahi was killed from sniper gunshots on Saturday near a police station in the area.

Also on Saturday, the head of Egypt’s Central Security Forces (CSF) in the city of al-Arish, Nasser Al-Husseini, and other police personnel survived an assassination attempt that targeted their security patrol, local media reported.

According to state-run newspaper Akhbar Al Youm, an improvised explosive device (IED) had been planted on the road of the patrol near the al-Khazan district in al-Arish.

Ahmed Ban, an expert on Islamist groups, said these operations show that extremist elements in Sinai "are losing their mind".

"The remaining ISIS elements in Sinai embrace extremely radical ideology and receive instructions sporadically from their leaders in Syria and Iraq," he told Al-Mashareq.

Those elements are now carrying out "limited-scale operations, in more than one location and on the same day", as a new tactic they are using to prove they are still able to launch attacks.

The time is now ripe to take out the group in Sinai "once and for all", Ban said.

This can be achieved through a large-scale land operation to comb the area in search of any remaining ISIS or other extremist elements who were dispersed after the army's intensified aerial campaign in North Sinai, he said.