Three Egyptian policemen died and three others were wounded on Saturday when masked gunmen, suspected to be a jihadist group, fired on their car at the area of Gesr al-Wadithe in city of El-Arish before escaping , security sources said.
Egyptian state-run television quoted a security source saying the attackers blocked the police car with a truck before opening fire.
According to the sources, the attackers raised the black flag of jihad and proclaimed "God is great."
No groups have yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Security forces threw up a cordon around the city in an attempt to capture the gunmen, AFP reported.
This attack came one day after Egyptian security forces seized 40 surface-to-surface missiles, 83 bombs and half a kilogram of ball bearings, which can be used in bombs to cause greater damage and injury. They were smuggled out of Libya by Islamist militants from the Sinai Peninsula.
In a separate incident, Egyptian officials said that two Palestinians were arrested by Egyptian special services after chasing them in the tunnel areas bordering the international zone east of Rafah crossing, the state news media reported on Friday.
MENA also said that the men, who were from Gaza, were taken to investigation and confessed that they sneaked into Egypt last month and were coming back to Gaza through the same tunnel.
After investigations, it was discovered that the two men were trying to escape criminal sentences, and they were transferred to El-Arish central prison.
Also on Friday, a 30-year-old woman from a prominent family in El-Arish went missing after taking a taxi to visit a relative. Her family believes she was kidnapped by Bedouin men.
In response, protesters set tires on fire outside a building for security forces in north Sinai and blocked a road between El-Arish and the Rafah crossing on Egypt's border with Gaza.
According to some local news agencies, the security services believe that the lady did not disappear, but she had been taken outside the country for suspiscions relating to her role in smuggling of weapons and explosives to the armed groups in Sinai.
It should be noted that Egyptian forces two months ago began their biggest security crackdown in decades after militants killed 16 border guards in the deadliest attack there since Egypt's 1973 war with Israel.
Opinion:
Based on what was mentioned in the report, we can reach the conclusion that despite the security effort in Sinai, but there is no trace of security over there. This brings up the question of whether the security in the era of President Mubarak was powerful and capable to control Sinai, unlike the situation in Sinai nowadays?
The Mubarak era witnessed a number of bombings and killings in Sinai and in the Sharm al-Sheikh resort city, but not that much. Whereas, now every single hour there is shooting and killing not only targeting security sites but targeting citizens. Perhaps the incident which happened a few days ago, when gunmen opened fire in a children's park in south Sinai on Saturday night, wounding four children, a man and woman celebrating the Eid al-Adha holiday, proves this point.
Isn't this incident catagorized as terrorism? Were the children and women at fault?
I think that the security situation in Sinai can no longer be handled as it is. Egyptian security claims it is closing the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, but unfortunately tunnels are still working and everything is being smuggled through them. In addition, we still see in Gaza a lot of Egyptians in the streets, and this never happened in the Mubarak era.
The best solution for what is happening in Sinai would be that the Egyptian army re-evaluate its ongoing military operation, ongoing for more than two months. Moreover, they should hesitate to request international assistance in order to eliminate all the non-secutiry phenomena, which will offend the people of Egypt and all Arabs.
Finally, the international community should exert pressure on Israel, which often prevent the entry of heavy weapons to the Egyptian army, claiming that the entry of such weapons is considered a violation to the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.
We trust that the Egyptian army is able to control all of Sinai, but at the same time they need to be well-armed, in order to be able to deal with terrorism.
Save Sinai before it is too late!
Sources:
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/20
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-e
Source: http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/13327103-three-more-of-egypts-security-men-killed-in-sinai
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