The attack, believed to be the first of its kind outside the Sinai Peninsula in nearly three years, killed three police officers, according to medical and security sources.
The jihadist organization Islamic State (IS) claimed yesterday Saturday through its propaganda organ the responsibility for Friday’s deadly attack in Ismailia, in the Suez Canal.
“A nucleus (…) of the caliphate’s soldiers managed to attack an Egyptian police checkpoint (…) with machine guns,” reported the Amaq news agency, an IS propaganda organ.
The attack, believed to be the first of its kind outside the Sinai Peninsula in nearly three years, killed three policemen, medical and security sources said.
IS has claimed responsibility for various attacks beyond the Sinai through its propaganda organs, but these have not been confirmed by Egyptian authorities.
Two gunmen got out of cars on Friday and approached a checkpoint set up near a district of Ismailia (northeast) before opening fire with automatic weapons.
Police returned fire, killing one of the gunmen and injuring the second, who nevertheless managed to escape.
Apart from the three policemen who lost their lives, four others were injured.
In recent years, attacks against security forces and government officials have been carried out mainly in the Sinai Peninsula, but where the jihadist insurgency appears to be losing momentum.
Attacks have also been carried out in Cairo.
Egypt’s military and police launched a large-scale “anti-terror” operation in the Sinai Peninsula in February 2018, targeting pockets of jihadists, some of whom pledge allegiance to IS. They are also fighting rebels in the western desert, between the Nile Valley and the border with Libya.
More than a thousand suspected jihadists and dozens of security forces have been killed since then, according to official figures — but that tally is impossible to independently verify, and access to the northern Sinai region is off limits to journalists.
The Suez Canal, through which about 10% of the world’s seaborne goods pass, is one of Egypt’s main sources of income.
RES-EMP
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