Twelve militants have been killed in northern and central Sinai on the fourth day of a comprehensive anti-terrorism operation waged by military and security forces, Egypt’s army spokesperson Tamer El-Refaie said in a statement on Monday, like reported by ahram.org.eg.

This was the fifth communiqué and the second release of casualty figures since Operation Sinai 2018 was launched on Friday.

El-Refaie said 92 other susp-ects were captured and 60 targets used by militants were destroyed in Monday’s operations.

“The army destroyed and seized 20 4×4 vehicles, 27 motorbikes, 30 hideouts and ammunition storehouses. Army sappers also detonated 27 IED’s that were planted in the area of operations,” the statement said.

“Upon intelligence, the air force targeted and destroyed 60 targets used by terrorist elements,” it added.

Operation Sinai 2018 was launched on Friday morning, involving land, naval and air forces, as well as the police and border guards, targeting “terrorist and criminal elements and organizations” in northern and central Sinai, as well as parts of the Nile Delta and the Western Desert.

On Sunday, the army spokesperson said that army units killed 16 militants and arrested four others.

El-Rafei said Operation Sinai 2018 was launched “to implement the plan of comprehensive confrontation with terrorist and criminal elements and organizations in North and Central Sinai, and in other areas in the Nile Delta and desert areas west of the Nile Valley.”

Egypt has for years been battling an Islamist militancy based in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula that mainly targets security forces. The army said it has killed hundreds of militants in military operations there.

In late November, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sis ordered the military to defeat terrorists in North Sinai within three months, a deadline that will expire at the end of February. He authorized chief of staff Mohamed Farid to use “brute force.”.

Israel has sent military reinforcements to its borders with Syria and Lebanon, Quds Press reported.

Reporting the Israeli TV Channel 10, the news site said the decision came after the field development on the borders. No more details were given.

On Saturday, the Israeli occupation’s air forces launched a series of strikes in Syria in response after one of its F-16 fighter jets was shot down in Syrian airspace.

Syrian anti-aircraft fire downed the F-16 as it returned from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria early on Saturday.

According to a statement by the Israeli occupation army, the two Israeli pilots ejected prior to the explosion. Reports said that one of the pilots suffered serious wounds.

Egyptian security forces recently uncovered an Islamic State (ISIS) cell which plotted to kill Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the Egyptian Al-Dustour newspaper reported.

According to the report, the cell which was made up of 18 terrorists, was arrested while trying to sneak into Gaza.

The terrorists reportedly plotted to blow up the mosque in Gaza in which Haniyeh prays on Fridays.

ISIS’s Sinai affiliate, which is known as the Sinai Province, has claimed the majority of the attacks in the Sinai Peninsula in recent years.

ISIS, which follows a Salafist interpretation of Islam, has also targeted Hamas. In August, a suicide bombing near Egypt’s border with Gaza killed a Hamas guard. It was the first time a suicide attack has targeted Hamas forces in Gaza.

The Salafists clash with Hamas, which rules Gaza, arguing that its interpretation of Islam is too moderate.

Haniyeh, incidentally, was added last week to the list of global terrorists sanctioned by the U.S. He was unfazed by the designation, saying that “the decision is null and worthless” and adding, “Let them dip the decision in water and then drink it.”

The killing of a senior Algerian militant by special forces soon after he slipped into Tunisia has raised concern that Al Qaeda is trying to regroup in the North African state as rival Daesh has suffered major setbacks, security sources say according to gulftoday.ae.

Last month, Tunisian special forces killed Bilel Kobi, a top aide to Abdelmalek Droukdel, better known as Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, the leader of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in a mountainous region along the Tunisian-Algerian border.

Kobi was on an apparent mission to reunite splinter groups of Qaeda fighters in Tunisia, putting the army on alert for more infiltrations, a senior Tunisian security source said.

AQIM was the dominant extremist force in North Africa, staging several high-profile deadly attacks until 2013 when it fractured as many militants flocked to the more extremist Daesh as it seized territory in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

IS became a major recruiter for disaffected, often unemployed young men especially from Tunisia, where poverty has spread since the uprising that toppled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 and induced protracted turmoil.

But Daesh’s appeal has waned since it lost all its territorial strongholds in neighbouring Libya as well as in Iraq and Syria to counter-offensives by security forces, with fighters returning home or looking for new causes to join.

That has prompted AQIM to try to lure new talent from among Daesh veterans, two Tunisian security sources told Reuters.

“Al Qaeda wants to invest in a recent decline of Daesh to re-organise and re-emerge as it seeks to restructure especially in Algeria, Libya and Tunisia by naming new local leaders on the ground,” one of the security sources said.

Kobi was not the only senior militant sent to reorganise al Qaeda in Tunisia. Hamza al-Nimr, an Algerian who joined Qaeda in 2003, was dispatched to lead a cell in Tunisia but was killed with Kobi in the same operation, Tunisian security sources say.

Beefed up by Western countries, Tunisia’s security forces have managed to pre-empt any major attack since an Daesh militant shot dead 39 foreigners on a Mediterranean beach in June 2015, but authorities remain on alert.

Hundreds of Tunisians have joined extremist groups abroad but it is unclear how many have returned as significant numbers of them were killed in Syria combat and elsewhere, officials say.

Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese newspaper reports dozens of Gazans who left to fight in Iraq, Syria and Libya have returned to the region, with some of them joining the Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula to battle both Egypt and Hamas, like reported by ynetnews.com

Dozens of Gaza residents are battling Hamas under the Islamic State’s black flag, reported Tuesday morning Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar in an overview of the struggle between the Islamic State’s Sinai branchand Hamas in Gaza.

Dozens of Gazans left the strip to fight in Iraq, Syria and Libya, the paper reported, but have since returned to the region. While some of them turned themselves into Hamas’s hands, as the terrorist group is cracking down on the presence of the Islamic State (IS) in the strip, others still have decided to remain in Sinai and battle Hamas there under IS’s auspices.

The fight between the two terror groups was dubbed a “direct and vicarious war” by Al Akhbar, the culmination of which was brought to bear in a video put out by IS recently showing the execution of a man named Musa Abu Zamat, who was once an IS activist himself but was killed for transferring arms to Hamas through smuggling tunnels going into Gaza from Sinai.

In the purported execution video, both the speaker and the executioner are former Gaza residents, one of which is even allegedly the son of a senior Hamas official from the al-Shati refugee camp.

Hamas has obtained information, Al Akhbar further reported, that some 50 Gazans are fighting for the IS in Sinai—having joined the extremist Sunni terror group in the past few months—alongside the group’s foreign fighters.

The share of Gazans in the Islamic State’s ranks in the Sinai Peninsula was estimated to be only 10 percent, with the remaining being 50 percent Egyptians and 40 percent citizens of other Arab states.

While the Islamic State was still trying to entrench itself in Sinai, it attempted to establish links with some of Gaza’s terrorist groups under the watchful eye of Hamas, but the latter group’s crackdown on Salafi activists and other entities affiliated with IS led to the war.

The Hamas-IS struggle was later compounded by the Egyptian army’s efforts to curtail the Salafist group’s power in northern Sinai, and its subsequent forced cooperation with Hamas.

Al Akhbar also claimed the aforementioned execution video was only one documented instance, whereas seven more people were executed for the same charges previously.

On the topic of Egypt’s unwilling cooperation with Hamas, the Gaza-ruling group received intelligence obtained by the Egyptian army that pointed to the IS’s Sinai branch’s intentions to carry out suicide attacks in the strip and near the Sinai-Gaza border.

Following up on an investigative report by the New York Times published recently that exposed the extent of the alleged Israeli involvement in military operations against IS in Sinai, sources who spoke to Al Akhbar claimed that more than 17 of the group’s senior officials were taken out by Israel, most of whom were previously active in Palestinian terror groups.

“The recent military evictions of the Islamic State militia — in the likes of Syria — presented an “absolute and real risk” of jihadi fighters trying to slip into Europe, Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano told a conference on migration and security in Rome, like reported by egyptindependent.com.

“It is in our interests to defeat the business model of traffickers whose profits are used to finance organized crime and, we have the evidence for this, terrorism,” Alfano said.

At the same time, he warned against “exploitation of the immigration issue in order to stir up fears and gain easy consensus.”

Represented at Tuesday’s conference were 13 European and African countries, including partly lawless Libya.

Alfano’s remarks precede Italy’s March 4 parliamentary election in which the arrival of more than 600,000 migrants over the past four years is a key issue — underscored by last Saturday’s drive-by attack in Macerata by an Italian neo-Nazi.

Italy coordinates the vast majority of sea rescues between northern African and its southern coast, including islands such as Lampedusa.

On Monday, former prime minister and Democratic Party leader Matteo Renzi blamed part of the problem on populist former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose center-right opposition alliance is polling strongly.

“If in Italy migrants are arriving, it’s because someone made war with Libya, and the premier was Berlusconi,” Renzi said, referring to NATO’s 2011 air strike campaign against the late Moammar Gadhafi regime.

On Sunday, Berlusconi claimed Italy had been left with a “social bomb ready to explode” by center-left Democratic Party governments, once led by Renzi.

Last week, the EU’s border agency, Frontex, launched a replacement Mediterranean operation called Themis, removing the obligation of the previous mission, Triton, to bring all those rescued only to Italy, to include, for example, Malta.

Frontex spokeswoman, Izabella Cooper, said no rescued migrants would be taken [back] to transit non-EU nations such as Tunisia and Libya, where conditions have been widely deplored but instead to the “nearest place of safety” in accordance with international maritime law.

Under an Italy-led deal to assist Libya’s coast guard, arrivals in Italy from the largely lawless Mediterranean nation dropped 26 percent last year — while an EU deal with Turkey largely shut down the so-called Balkan route.

Instead, pressure has shifted west to Algeria and Morocco as migrants, still intent on reaching Europe, head for Spain, some via its African outposts of Ceuta and Melilla.

More than 26,300 migrants reached Spain last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Spain, which a decade ago began costly deterrence and repatriation deals with sub-Saharan countries, faces a new situation, according to non-governmental groups.

Flows will intensify “along the Western Mediterranean route,” warned Estrella Galan, secretary general of the asylum-assistance group Commission for the Protection of Refugees (CEAR) last month.

“If we don’t change our policies we are going to continue an endless cycle of replicating migration patterns from one location to another,” she said.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) announced that its forces have bombed sites belonging to extremist groups west of Derna, a stronghold of terrorist groups in the east of the country, in preparation for a major military operation to permanently liberate the city, like reported by aawsat.com.

“The sites were bombed in the south and west of the city by heavy artillery,” said a source from the army, which is led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

The third brigade of Battalion 321 released videos showing what it described as the “precision bombing,” which targeted extremist positions in Dhahr al-Hamr near Derna.

For his part, Colonel Younis Attia, the security director of Shahhat (west of Derna), called on all departments and centers in the province to be ready to support the military when it enters to liberate the city.

Meanwhile, the Libyan parliament, which is located in the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk, discussed in a meeting violations committed against the residents of Tawergha, including the prevention of their return to their city from where they have been displaced since 2011.

The media committee for the return of Tawergha accused militias belonging to the Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, of shooting displaced people in two camps in Qararat al-Qatf near Bani Walid.

A pro-legitimacy news agency in eastern Libya quoted Committee member Ali Diwan as saying that a number of people were injured in the incident.

For its part, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya said that UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has distributed blankets, cooking utensils, hygiene kits and sleeping mats to the displaced people of Tawergha.

UNHCR field teams and local partners are on the ground to provide emergency and urgent relief to some 5,000 displaced people from Tawergha, it said in a statement.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb confirmed that the Algerian army has killed one of its senior officials, like reported by aawsat.com.

Adel Seghiri — also known as Abu Ruwaha al-Qasantini — was among those running the group’s Al-Andalus media wing responsible for putting out videos and statements.

The army said on Thursday it killed “two dangerous terrorists” in the Jijel region, 400 kilometers east of the capital Algiers.

Seghiri was an active member of militant groups since the 1990s. He had been severely injured in confrontations with the Algerian army in 1996 and became the terrorist organization’s propagandist in 2013, the group said.

An expert in security affairs told Asharq Al-Awsat that his death dealt a severe blow to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has staged kidnappings and attacks across Africa’s Sahel and Maghreb regions.

Also Sunday, the defense ministry said in a statement that terrorist Hajj Quwaider known as al-Shaanbi surrendered to the army in the southern region of Tamanrasset.

The army confiscated a Kalashnikov rifle and four ammunition depots during his arrest.

The statement said that Quwaider had joined extremists in 2011.

As war drums beat on Israel’s southern front, Israel’s navy sees an increased threat coming from Hamas’s underwater commando unit, like reported by jpost.com.

“Hamas sees potential in the sea like they saw potential in their tunnels,” said a senior naval officer on Monday during a briefing with reporters.

Israel’s navy has in recent years understood that seabased terror attacks can also come from under the water, a threat that has grown since the last conflict with Hamas in 2014.

During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, five Hamas frogmen (naval commandos) tried to infiltrate Kibbutz Zikim before they were confronted and killed by the IDF. In the last three years since the conflict Hamas has significantly expanded its naval commando unit with a reported 1,500 frogmen who have underwater scooters which can bring them further out to sea.

In 2015 the navy began deploying dozens of sensors from a new system named “Aqua Shield” which can detect and alert the navy to suspicious underwater movement.

The sensors were placed on the sea floor near Gaza and Lebanon’s water borders with Israel.

The navy has also placed more emphasis on training for underwater infiltrations. In August the navy’s Salvage and Underwater Missions Unit held a wide-ranging twoweek drill in Haifa dubbed “Noble Melinda” with its counterparts from the US and France.

But even with the increased amount of training and advanced technology deployed by the IDF to counter the threat, the navy does not yet have a clear solution to the problem like the army has against tunnels, with the underground barrier currently under construction around the Gaza Strip.

Israel is highly dependent on the sea, with over 90% of imports arriving by ship. While the country’s navy is relatively small compared to other IDF corps, it still has a significant amount of territory to protect – even more since the expansion of the country’s maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ) from 40 to 150 nautical miles from shore years ago.

“The importance of the sea for Israel is very clear. Everything in the country comes via the sea. Israel can never be in the position where its waters are not protected,” the senior naval officer said.

“Eight years ago Israel’s EEZ was not significant, but we have had a game-changer since then,” he said, referring to the natural gas drilling rigs which supply around 60% – and soon 75% – of Israel’s electricity.

“The fact that [there are] gas storage centers for our energy is both a positive and a negative,” the officer stated, explaining that the rigs are clear targets for enemies on Israel’s northern border. Hezbollah, which is believed to have long-range missiles, including precision ballistic missiles received from Iran, can hit the rigs and ships inside the EEZ that are the responsibility of the navy.

“We believe that Hezbollah has the ability to strike any spot in our waters,” the senior naval officer stated.

While there is no hermetic protection on the sea, due to the threat posed by Hezbollah’s arsenal of Grad rockets and other longer-range projectiles, the navy has upgraded its weapons and defensive systems on its entire combat fleet.

While existing Sa’ar-5 and Sa’ar 4.5 ships are being upgraded with the integration of new radars and electronic warfare systems, Israel is set to receive new Dolphin-class submarines and new Sa’ar-6 Corvettes in the coming years, which are set to be operational by 2021. The Sa’ar 6 will have a crew of 70 sailors, a range of 2,500 miles, and advanced capabilities able to deal with a wide range of threats, including Iron Dome short-range defense missile launchers and Barak- 8 long-range surface-to-air missile naval defense system.

“The bread and butter of the Sa’ar 6 is its defense and offensive capabilities,” the senior officer stated. “I wish we could have this ship on our waters right now.”

Terrorists from the Islamic State have tried to attack the Dhara oilfield, sources from the Libyan National Army told local media. The LNA confronted the terrorists before the attack occurred, seizing a car that contained five explosive belts and several improvised explosive devices, the sources said, which were ready to be planted along oil lines near a train route.

UK-based, Saudi-funded Asharq Al-Awsat said the news confirmed some information it had received from LNA sources last November that told of ISIS plans to strike targets in the Oil Crescent—Libya’s oil heartland.

Last month, this information was reiterated by a senior official from U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), spokeswoman Robyn Mack. “At the moment, we believe that the organization (ISIS-Libya) is likely to give priority to the restructuring of security forces and infrastructure, and to launch strikes, which may include targets in the Libyan oil crescent.”

Since September last year, the Oil Crescent has been under the control of the Libyan National Army, which is affiliated with the eastern government but working with the National Oil Corporation to protect the area from militant groups. An LNA general confirmed the AFRICOM information, saying that IS forces have made more than one attempt to enter the heart of Libya’s oil industry, but have thus far been repelled by the LNA.

The Dhara oilfield is operated by local company Waha in partnership with U.S. Hess, Marathon Oil, and ConocoPhillips. In December, Waha suffered a pipeline bombing that cost Libya up to 100,000 bpd in lost production, even though the company immediately diverted the flow of oil to the Es Sider terminal through another pipeline.

Although Libya has agreed to cap its 2018 oil production at the 2017 levels as part of its contribution to the OPEC production cut pact, the country has struggled to raise its production significantly above 1 million bpd—the level it reached this summer for the first time since 2013.