Islamic State attack in Egypt’s North Sinai kills more than 100

Insurgents from the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, attacked several military checkpoints in Egypt’s North Sinai on Wednesday in a coordinated assault that killed more than 100 people in one of the biggest militant strikes in modern Egyptian history. Soldiers, police officers, civilians and militants were among the dead. ISIS’s Egyptian affiliate, Sinai Province, claimed responsibility and said that it had attacked more than 15 security sites and carried out three suicide bombings. Egypt’s armed forces said that at least 100 militants and 17 soldiers had been killed.

It’s unprecedented, in the number of terrorists involved and the type of weapons they are using.

A senior military official to AFP

The assault — a significant escalation in violence in the Sinai Peninsula that lies between Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Suez Canal — was the second high-profile attack in Egypt this week. On Monday, a bomb killed the prosecutor general in Cairo. Meanwhile, Egypt’s Cabinet approved draft antiterrorism and election laws on Wednesday, the transitional justice minister said. The Cabinet said in a statement that the antiterrorism legislation would provide “quick and just deterrence” against terrorism. It said that there were also measures that would dry up the avenues of terrorism funding.

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