Eleven soldiers were killed on Saturday 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.
“A group of Takfiri elements launched an attack against a military hydraulic pumping station,” a military statement said.
The soldiers "repelled them and fighting ensued in which eleven soldiers were killed and five wounded", according to the text.
The soldiers "continue to pursue the terrorists" to "an isolated region of Sinai", according to the same source.
The term “takfiris” is generally used to refer to Sunni jihadist or radical Islamist groups.
“Anti-terrorist” operation since 2018
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi 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".
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.
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Egypt
Soldier
Terrorist attack
Sinai
Suez
Jihadism