16 February 2018•Update: 17 February 2018
By Mohamed Mahmoud
CAIRO
Three militants were killed and another 224 arrested on the eighth day of a wide-ranging army campaign now underway in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, army spokesman Tamer al-Rifai said Friday.
“Within the context of ongoing army operations in northern and central Sinai, three armed militants were killed [on Friday] while another 224 were taken into custody,” al-Rifai said in a statement.
A total of 28 explosive devices were defused on Friday while 68 “targets” were successfully hit, the spokesman added, without explaining the nature of the “targets” in question.
According to al-Rifai, a total of 56 militants have been killed since the operation began eight days ago, while more than 900 others have been detained.
Last November, more than 300 people were killed in a deadly attack on a mosque in northeastern Sinai.
Following the attack, President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi gave the army three months to crush Sinai-based militant groups.
On Feb. 9, Egypt announced the launch of a wide-ranging military operation in Sinai -- including air, naval and ground forces -- aimed at purging the peninsula of “terrorist elements”.
The restive Sinai Peninsula has remained the epicenter of a deadly militant insurgency since mid-2013, when the army ousted Mohamed Morsi -- Egypt’s first freely elected president -- in a bloody military coup.
