Sources: Gunmen kill nine in Egypt’s Sinai
Gunmen shot dead at least nine truck drivers in Egypt’s Sinai region late on Thursday when they targeted a transport convoy, setting the vehicles on fire, medical and security sources said on Friday.
Egypt’s security forces have since 2014 been battling a Daesh affiliate in northern Sinai, where terrorists have mostly hit police and soldiers but also occasionally targeted infrastructure and businesses, Reuters reported.
Two security sources in Al-arish, the area capital, said armed men attacked the convoy, which was carrying coal to a cement factory.
The bodies of the truck drivers, all shot to death, were taken to the morgue of Suez public hospital, four medical sources said.
A military spokesman said there was no official statement. An Interior Ministry official did not respond to a request for information. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. “They have threatened us repeatedly, asking that we don’t work for the army’s companies. We informed the factory management of the threats and asked them for more protection,” one local truck driver, Ismail Abdel-raouf, said.
Hundreds of police and soldiers have been killed since terror activities quickened pace in northern Sinai in 2013.
A terror group, Ansar Bayt al-maqdis, declared allegiance to Daesh in 2014 and has since tried to spread outside the peninsula.
President Abdel Fatah al-sisi has said Daesh terrorists might try to enter Libya and Egypt after their defeats in Iraq and Syria.