Cairo: The Egyptian military said on Thursday it killed a senior Daesh cleric and 18 terrorists in air strikes in the Sinai Peninsula where the extremists are waging an insurgency.
The announcement came after the militants claimed a series of attacks, including a shooting near a monastery this week and twin church bombings on April 9 that killed dozens.
Among the militants killed was “one of the prominent leaders of the so-called Ansar Bait Al Maqdis, the head of the religious affairs committee in the group,” the military said, without saying when the strikes occurred.
Ansar Bait Al Maqdis was the name used by the terrorists in the Sinai before they pledged allegiance to the Daesh in November 2014.
The terrorists have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohammad Mursi in 2013.
The military has killed several of their top leaders, but the extremists have increasingly expanded their attacks from the Sinai to other parts of Egypt, especially against Christians.
The April 9 church bombings in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria followed a December suicide bombing in a Cairo church that killed 29 people, also claimed by Daesh.
On Wednesday, the interior ministry said security forces killed a gunman suspected of killing a policeman and wounding three others near St Catherine’s monastery in south Sinai the day before.
Daesh, which claimed the shooting, has threatened more attacks on Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 per cent of Egypt’s population of more than 90 million people.
