Egypt launches major assault on militants ahead of election

CAIRO: Egypt began a major assault against militants on Friday focused on the Sinai peninsula, where IS attacks have killed soldiers, police and civilians, aiming to crush their insurgency by an end of February deadline set by President Abdel Fattah el Sisi.

The former general on November 29 ordered the military to defeat militants in North Sinai within three months, after an attack on a mosque which killed some 300 people, the deadliest such incident in the Arab world’s most populous country.

Residents said they saw warplanes flying above the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, which borders North Sinai to the west. To the northeast of the vast, remote desert region, people in the Gaza Strip said they heard explosions coming from Egyptian territory.

A military spokesman said the operation would cover large parts of Sinai, but also parts of the Nile Delta and the Western Desert, where other militants have waged attacks, some believed to be staged out of neighbouring Libya.

The campaign, which involves the army, navy, air force, border patrol and police, takes place ahead of a March election in which Sisi is seeking a second term. He is widely expected to win. Sisi posted on his Facebook account on Friday: “I follow with pride the heroic actions of my sons in the armed forces and police to clear Egypt’s territory of terrorist elements.”

Security sources said on Thursday the operation, which had been in planning for some time, was unprecedented in its scope, coordination and size, involving thousands of troops, but did not provide further details.

“The armed forces calls upon the Egyptian people in all parts of the country to closely cooperate with law enforcement forces to confront terrorism, uproot it and immediately report any elements threatening the security and stability of the country,” military spokesman, Colonel Tamer al Rifai, said in televised address.

Rifai said in a second statement the air force had targeted militant hide-outs in north and central Sinai, while the navy tightened its maritime control to cut off supply lines. a