47 militants killed by Egyptian security forces in Sinai

Arab Telegraph – Egyptian security forces killed 47 Islamic militants in the country’s Northern Sinai in one of the biggest operations in the region in months, security sources said.

Apache helicopters killed 27 militants from the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, which pledges allegiance to Islamic State, the ultra-hardline militants who have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, the sources said.

Hours later, soldiers shot and killed 20 militants, said the sources.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, fighting to topple the Cairo government, has claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks that killed more than 30 members of the security forces in late January.

After that bloodshed, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Egyptians the country faced a long, tough battle against militants.

Also Friday, a bomb exploded along a street in Egypt’s second largest city Alexandria, killing one person and wounding four others, security sources said.

Sinai-based militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and police since then army chief Sisi toppled president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Brotherhood supporters and security forces clashed in the Cairo suburb of Matariya, the state news agency reported.