| Egypt military faces elusive enemy in Sinai |
CAIRO Egypt, which launched air raids against militants in Sinai for the first time in decades on Wednesday, faces a tough enemy that has used the peninsula’s rugged terrain to evade capture in the past.
The military said it deployed Apache helicopter gunships in the strikes that killed 20 “terrorists” in the Sinai village of Tumah, in retaliation for a weekend ambush that cost the lives of 16 soldiers. Sunday’s attack, in which the militants commandeered an army vehicle and drove it into Israel, highlighted the government’s loose grip over the peninsula that borders Israel and is home to lucrative tourist resorts.
Even as the army massed its forces in preparation for the dawn assault on Wednesday, unidentified gunmen attacked four army checkpoints near the north Sinai town of El Arish, causing no deaths. The checkpoint attacks follow a pattern of drive by shootings that have plagued security forces in Sinai since a popular uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak, and drastically weakened the police force.
Agencies
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