Gunmen kill Twenty one Egyptian military border guards near Libya

CAIRO- ArabTelegraph – Gunmen killed 21 Egyptian military border guards near the frontier with Libya on Saturday, highlighting a growing threat from an area that security officials say has become a haven for militants seeking to topple the Cairo government.

Security officials said the assailants were smugglers. But an army spokesman said on his Facebook page that “terrorists” – the term authorities use to describe Islamist militants – were behind the attack.

He said a weapons storage facility was blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade in an exchange of fire, killing the soldiers and wounding four others.

The attack took place in Wadi al-Gadid governorate, which borders both Sudan and Libya. Two smugglers were killed in clashes with the guards, security officials said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly expressed concerns about militants who have capitalised on the chaos in Libya and set up operations along the border.

Sisi met with top Egyptian security officials after the attack, state news agency MENA reported.

Security officials say militants pay smugglers to transport weapons, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, to comrades in Egypt, which is already facing an Islamist insurgency based in the Sinai Peninsula near Israel.