Sinai Peninsula

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Islamic State’s recruitment and use of women to support its extremist cause could pave the way for more front-line roles for women in jihadi groups in the future, the European Union’s police agency said in a report published Friday.

Gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle in a Cairo suburb at dawn Sunday, killing a police officer and the driver and wounding two others, the interior ministry said.

CAIRO — Egypt’s army said Saturday seven suspected jihadists were “eliminated” and 15 soldiers killed or wounded in an attack in the Sinai Peninsula, where troops are fighting the Islamic State jihadist group.

TEL AVIV – The Egyptian military destroyed 37 cross-border tunnels between the Sinai Peninsula and the blockaded Gaza Strip over the past year, a statement released by the army said. 

CAIRO — Egyptian security forces have killed 14 Islamist militants in an exchange of fire in the country’s turbulent northern Sinai region, the interior ministry said Sunday.

CAIRO — Egypt’s Interior Ministry says police killed six suspected Islamic militants in a shootout in a Cairo suburb.

CAIRO, Egypt — A suicide attack against a church on the outskirts of Cairo was foiled Saturday when a bomber blew himself up before reaching the target, state media and security sources said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said on Thursday that he is prepared to personally join the battle against Islamic State militants in the Sinai Peninsula. Before assuming the presidency following a 2013 coup, Sisi held the rank of general and was head of Egypt’s armed forces.

TEL AVIV – Israeli drones, jets, and helicopters have carried out a covert campaign with more than 100 airstrikes against Islamic State-affiliated terrorists in the Sinai over the past two years, when Egypt proved unable to deal with the jihadist threat inside its borders, the New York Times reported Saturday.

Egypt on Tuesday executed four Islamists following their conviction by a military tribunal of killing three military academy students in a 2015 bomb attack that wounded six others.

Seven Palestinian jihadists residing in the Gaza Strip have managed to get across the border fence between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in order to join the ranks of Wilyat Sinai, the Egyptian branch of the Islamic State active in the Sinai Peninsula, according to a senior jihadist in Gaza.

Egyptian authorities on Tuesday executed 15 prisoners convicted of attacks on security forces in the restive Sinai Peninsula, police officials said.

Supporters of Egypt’s president announced on Sunday that they have collected more than 12 million signatures from people urging him to run for a second four-year term, a mostly symbolic gesture, as there is little doubt he will contest, and win, next year’s elections.

Israel, according to foreign reports, has assisted Egypt throughout its fight against the Islamic State insurgency in the northern Sinai Peninsula, including intelligence sharing and even allegedly carrying out drone strikes against the terrorists.

The mosque where Friday’s massacre unfolded in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula had been widely associated with Sufi Muslims who have been attacked by the Islamic State group wherever the extremists operate.

EL-ARISH, Egypt —Egyptian state news agency MENA reports that 155 people have been killed in a bombing and shooting attack on a Sufi mosque in the volatile northern Sinai Peninsula, in what appeared to be the latest attack by the area’s local Islamic State affiliate.

EL-ARISH, Egypt — In a brazen attack, about a dozen Islamic militants robbed a local bank and traded fire with security forces guarding an unused church in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Monday, killing seven people, including three civilians, officials said.

EL-ARISH, Egypt — Suspected Islamic State militants on Sunday attacked six checkpoints in the turbulent north of the Sinai Peninsula, killing six soldiers and wounding 37, according to security and hospital officials.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum has released a special statement denying the claims of government officials in Libya that local authorities arrested a Hamas cell involved in weapons smuggling and attack plots.

CAIRO — Two international rights groups called on Egyptian authorities on Saturday to halt their crackdown on people suspected of homosexuality following the waving of the LGBT rainbow flag at a recent concert in Cairo.

TEL AVIV — A Hamas delegation led by the movement’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, returned to the Gaza Strip last week after two weeks of discussions with the leadership of Egyptian intelligence.

TEL AVIV — Hamas security forces successfully foiled three attempts by jihadists to cross into Sinai from the Gaza Strip last week, a security source from the organization told Breitbart Jerusalem.

Gunfire from the Sinai Peninsula struck Israel on Sunday night, in what the military said was accidental spillover from fighting across the border.

A suicide bomber killed a Hamas guard in southern Gaza on Thursday, officials said, in what was seen as a rare Islamist attack against the Palestinian group that has run the impoverished enclave for a decade.

Four former Hamas members took part in the Islamic State’s attack in the Sinai Peninsula that killed at least 23 Egyptian soldiers, a top Israeli defense official said Saturday.

Egyptian officials say at least 10 security troops were killed when a car bomb struck a military checkpoint followed by heavy gunfire in northeastern Sinai Peninsula.

TEL AVIV — Wilyat Sinai, the Egyptian branch of the Islamic State organization, has published propaganda photos purportedly of everyday life in areas of the Sinai Peninsula under IS control.

As Israel marked the fiftieth anniversary of its military victory in the Golan Heights during the Six Day War, President Reuven Rivlin called Thursday for global recognition of Israeli rule there, saying the northern territory is “essential” to the survival of the Jewish State.

Pope Francis wrapped up a brief but deeply symbolic visit to Egypt on Saturday with an open-air Mass for the country’s tiny Catholic community, defying security concerns to show his support for the Christians of this Muslim majority Arab nation who have increasingly become targeted by Islamic militants.

Egyptian security forces killed a gunman suspected of shooting dead a policeman near St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, the interior ministry said on Wednesday.

Outside of Cairo’s St. Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope, a dozen high-ranking police officers are stationed on all entrances, searching cars and scanning the area, as security measures are visibly beefed up outside churches before Easter prayers on Sunday.

A rocket fired from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula struck a greenhouse in southern Israel on Monday morning, the police said.

A video posted on an encrypted social media channel used by the Islamic State purportedly shows the beheading of two elderly men found guilty of “witchcraft and sorcery” in Egypt.

Hamas has produced several dozen short-range rockets that can carry a relatively heavy explosive load, Army Radio reported Tuesday.

Israel intensified its warning against citizens traveling to the Sinai Peninsula on Monday for fear of an imminent terror attack by the Islamic State, with the knowledge that thousands will spurn their advisory and travel to the area in the coming months.

According to latest reports, the number of Christian families who have been driven from the city of al-Arish in North Sinai has swollen to 259, as Islamic State militants continue their violent conquest of the region.