An Egyptian military officer was killed and two other people were wounded in a missile attack on a military airport near the town of Arish in the North Sinai region on Tuesday, the army spokesman said in a statement on Facebook.
It said the attack took place during a visit of Egypt’s interior and defense ministers to the area.
A security source said neither minister had been hurt during the attack. He also added that those wounded were an officer and a soldier,.
Moreover, a helicopter had been damaged during the attack, and that security forces had “dealt with the source of fire”, without elaborating, according to the statement .
Since the military coup in 2013 North Sinai has been the site of an ongoing insurgency by jihadists.
Sinai Province group – first emerged in 2011, and was previously known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis- has pledged allegiance to ISIS after the declaration of their so-called caliphate across Syria and Iraq in 2014.
The militant group was responsible for weekly attacks on the army and police in Sinai. It has also claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks, including the 2015 bomb abroad a Metro Jet flight which killed 224 people, many of them Russian tourists.
Attacks claimed by Islamic State’s Sinai branch have expanded to include civilian targets in the past year.
The group is widely believed to have carried out an attack on a mosque last month, the deadliest in Egypt’s modern history, which killed more than 300 people according to state media.
However Islamic State did not claim that attack.
Th security situation in Egypt is questionable as well as al-Sisi’s strategies for countering terrorism that have proved their failure until now.
Right after the deadliest mosque attack, the Guardian mentioned that al-Sisi’s “iron fist” tactics have proved futile.
The ISIS connection appears to be strengthening as the terror group’s “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria is degraded. ISIS is reportedly regrouping in neighboring Libya. Northern Sinai may also become a destination of choice for displaced jihadis.
It also added that al-Sisi’s continuous uses of violence will have opposite effect, leading to further unchecked escalation.
“Long experience shows that more killings, repression and dictatorial rule are not the answer for Egypt, any more than for other post-Arab Spring countries. Egypt under Sisi has become a black hole for human rights and democratic governance. Yet the US and Britain turn a blind eye, while a bloodthirsty Donald Trump tweets demands for revenge,”said the Guardian.
In the same context, the Washington post has also criticized Trump’s blind eye -, right after the attack, for his support to al-Sisi especially that he didn’t do any development to limit terrorism, saying that,” But it doesn’t seem that Sisi is doing a particularly effective job.”
It added,”the Egyptian military has been engaged in a grueling and bloody counterinsurgency in northern Sinai for years — particularly since al-Sisi came to power in a 2013 coup — and both their campaign and the terrorist attacks show no signs of winding down.”
Analysts said that al-Sisi’s approach has not helped the situation. Heavy-handed tactics have alienated an already embittered civilian population.
Earlier this year, rights groups reported that Egyptian troops carried out extrajudicial executions of unarmed detainees. Amnesty International detailed a campaign of torture,disappearances and assassinations conducted by Egyptian authorities.
No doubt that the security situation in Egypt is critical . In addition to the possible increase in the scope of violence in the presence of a fertile climate for extremism in the country.
