IS attacks troops in Sinai

CAIRO: An unprecedented wave of Islamic State group attacks on Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday killed at least 70 people, mostly troops, with the toll expected to rise, officials said.
The dead included several civilians, according to security and medical officials, who said 38 militants were also killed as they battled soldiers and policemen in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid.
The attacks, in which car bombs were used, were the most brazen in their scope since Jihadists launched an insurgency in 2013 following the army’s overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Mursi.
“It’s war. The battle is ongoing,” a senior military official told AFP.
“It’s unprecedented, in the number of terrorists involved and the type of weapons they are using.”
ISIL took over rooftops and fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station in Sheikh Zuweid after mining its exits to block reinforcements, a police colonel said.
The Islamic State group said its Jihadists were surrounding the police station after launching the morning attacks on 15 checkpoints and security installations using suicide car bombers and rockets.
Security and medical officials said ambulances could not get to the scene of the attacks because of heavy fighting in which the military brought in Apache helicopters.
“Ambulances are waiting in front of the hospital. They can’t leave. People are bringing in the casualties,” a health official told AFP.
A medic said one woman killed in the clashes had been brought to hospital by civilians.
Troops regularly come under attack in the Sinai, where Jihadists have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since Mursi’s overthrow.
In a statement released online, IS said it had carried out a multi-pronged assault that involved three suicide bombers.
“In a blessed raid enabled by God, the lions of the caliphate have simultaneously attacked more than 15 checkpoints belonging to the apostate army,” the group said.
The attacks came two days after the country’s state prosecutor Hisham Barakat was assassinated in a Cairo car bombing. He was the most senior government official killed in the Jihadist insurgency.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pledged to toughen laws and suggested fast track executions following Barakat’s death, and a cabinet meeting on Wednesday was expected to pass the amendments.
The government designated Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist group” in December 2013 as part of a crackdown on the opposition that has left hundreds of his supporters dead and thousands in jail.
Courts have sentenced hundreds to death, including Mursi, who was convicted of involvement in attacks on police stations. His sentence is being appealed.