Eleven soldiers were killed on Saturday May 7 in Egypt by thwarting a "terrorist" attack near the Suez Canal in the Sinai, a peninsula in the northeast of the country plagued by a jihadist insurgency, the army reported.

This toll is one of the highest recorded by Egyptian forces in years in Egypt.

Eleven soldiers were killed and five injured, according to an army statement.

The soldiers "continue to pursue and surround the terrorists" in the fighting which has moved to "an isolated region of Sinai".

The army and the police launched in February 2018 a vast "anti-terrorist" operation in the Sinai Peninsula where radical cells are raging, some of which have pledged allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).

They are also fighting radical insurgents in the Western Desert, between the Nile Valley and the border with Libya.

"Cut the evil of terrorism at the root"

President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi assured on Facebook that "these terrorist operations will not overcome the determination of the country and its army to cut the evil of terrorism at the root". 

In the Sinai, the attacks are particularly concentrated on one point: the oil and gas pipelines that supply Israel and Jordan.

Regularly, the army announces that it has killed jihadists in this area. 

In all, more than a thousand jihadists and dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, according to official figures - but no independent report is available and North Sinai is off-limits to journalists.

The last major attack in Cairo dates back to May 2020, when an attack targeted the Giza pyramids in the southwest of the capital, injuring 17 a month before Egypt hosted the World Cup. Africa Nations Football.

In August 2019, also in Cairo, around 20 people were killed when a car loaded with explosives rammed three other vehicles at high speed, causing a huge explosion.

The following month, a policeman and seven members of a "terrorist cell" were killed in exchanges of fire in Cairo.

These jihadists were preparing, according to the authorities, to attack Christians during the Easter celebrations.

With AFP

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