CAIRO — Gunmen sprayed a police
station in Egypt’s Sinai with bullets Thursday, setting off a brief
firefight with policemen before speeding away in their truck, the latest
in a series of attacks against security forces in the increasingly
volatile peninsula, security officials said.
Meanwhile, the military sent additional armored and other army
vehicles to boost its strength in a hunt for militants in the wake of a
deadly weekend attack that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers.
The security officials also said army engineers were making
preparations to destroy or shut an elaborate underground tunnel network
linking Sinai and Gaza that is used to smuggle weapons, people and basic
goods to circumvent border restrictions imposed against the
Hamas-controlled territory by Israel and Egypt. The officials all spoke
on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss
ongoing operations.
The lawlessness in northern Sinai, which
borders both Gaza and Israel, reached a new level with Sunday’s attack
on an Egyptian military border post. The attackers killed the 16
soldiers as they were breaking their daily fast for the holy month of
Ramadan with a sunset meal. They then commandeered an armored vehicle,
which they later used to storm across the border into Israel where they
were hit by an Israeli airstrike that killed at least six militants.
The
attack has rattled the Egyptian government, prompting the country’s new
Islamist president to sack the intelligence chief for failing to act on
an Israeli warning of an imminent attack just days before.
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