Egypt officials say Sinai militants kill 4 security forces

Sisi cracks down on news websites

EL-ARISH, Egypt, May 25, Egyptian security officials say separate attacks in restive northern Sinai peninsula where Islamic militants are active have left four security personnel dead.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media, say the first attack took place in the town of el-Arish when militants opened fire on an off-duty policeman.

They said three conscripts in an armored vehicle were killed later in a roadside bomb explosion in the border town of Rafah.

Egypt has in recent years been battling a stepped-up insurgency in northern Sinai, mainly by militants from an Islamic State group affiliate. The militant campaign accelerated after the military ouster of elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s government, already accused of muzzling freedom of expression and opposition to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has blocked access to a host of news websites including Qatar’s Al-Jazeera.

Around 20 websites based in Qatar and Egypt have been inaccessible since Wednesday night, including the Doha newspapers Al-Watan and Al-Raya, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Ikhwan Online and Egypt-based Al-Sharq television which is close to the outlawed group.

Independent sites such as Mada Masr, which takes a strong stand against corruption, and Huffpost Arabi, the Arabic edition of the Huffington Post, have also been cut for Egyptian web surfers.

It is not the first time that Al-Jazeera has run foul of Sisi’s administration.

Cairo has accused the network of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood which it blames for violence after Sisi ousted the movement from power in 2013.

Three Al-Jazeera journalists, including a Canadian and an Australian, were detained between 2013 and 2015, triggering international protests.

Timothy Kaldas, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said the latest crackdown appeared to be aimed at curbing discontent in Egypt and enacted without fear of consequences.

“More and more people are frustrated in Egypt in general. So they want to stop the critical information which could increase the frustration,” he said.

And after Sisi met US President Donald Trump last weekend, Cairo had “realised there will be no pressure coming from the United States ... whereas before they would have been criticised”.

On Thursday, Mada Masr posted on its Twitter account a cartoon of a man in front of a closed wooden door standing in the desert with the caption: “We have confirmed Mada Masr’s website has been blocked. Stay tuned on how to find us again.”

Huffpost Arabi, in a tweet of its own, calls on readers to use its Facebook page. An anti-terrorism law, adopted in August 2015, lays down stiff penalties for publishing “false information” on attacks in Egypt that contradicts official reports from the country’s defence ministry, stirring condemnation from rights groups.

A growing list of media personalities have since either decided to down tools and stay silent or run into trouble with the judiciary.