Minister vows to ‘cleanse’ insurgents

Suspected militants yesterday targeted a police vehicle in the turbulent northern part of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing two conscripts as the country’s defence minister vowed to “cleanse” Egypt of militancy.

Officials said the militants disabled the police lorry with a roadside bomb detonated remotely then opened fire. A total of ten conscripts were wounded in the attack on the outskirts of el-arish, Sinai’s largest city on the Mediterranean coast.

Security forces have been battling militants in northern Sinai for years in an insurgency that gathered steam after 2013.