Egypt’s Interior Ministry announced that 10 militants linked to ISIS had been killed during a raid on one of their hideouts in the Sinai Peninsula, like reported by aawsat.com.
According to the ministry’s statement, members of the group opened fire on security forces while they approached their hideout in an abandoned house in the city of El-Arish, North Sinai.
The ministry also said that the gunmen were linked to a militant leader of the Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis group who formed groups with the purpose of attacking security forces. Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis is the name that the group used before it pledged allegiance to ISIS in November 2014.
The ministry pointed out that that these attacks on security forces include a car bombing that took place on Monday at a checkpoint near El-Arish, killing eight policemen and a civilian. The group also assassinated two policemen and kidnapped and killed an engineer.
ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a police checkpoint on Tuesday during which the Interior Ministry said that police shot dead the five attackers.
Militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in 2013, and most of the attacks have taken place in the north of the Sinai Peninsula which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip. Attacks have also targeted Cairo.
The ministry said in a statement that it posted on its Facebook page they it has identified six of the dead who were involved in attacks on policemen, the army and civilians. It also added that police found eight automatic rifles, a machine gun and rifles in their possession. They also found a pistol that a policeman who was killed in October was carrying.
In a separate statement, a spokesman for the Egyptian army said that third field army forces, in cooperation with air forces, managed to “discover and destroy a very dangerous terrorist hotbed that protects terrorists in the governorate of North Sinai”.
