Egypt army: 184 killed in North Sinai

Egypt’s army said Monday that, since August, it has killed 184 “terrorists” in North Sinai, where militants have carried out nearly daily attacks against security forces after the toppling of president Mohamed Morsi. The military has “eliminated 184 terrorists and radicals,” state news agency MENA quoted army spokesman Colonel Ahmed Ali as saying. Alis said 203 others had been wounded and 835 were arrested. It is impossible to verify these figures independently. Jihadists have stepped up a campaign against security forces in the Sinai peninsula, which borders both Israel and the Gaza Strip, since the ouster of Morsi, killing more than 100 members of security forces. Egypt has poured troops into the mountainous and underdeveloped Sinai to combat growing militancy while it has waged a crackdown on moderate Islamists elsewhere. Prosecutors and police accuse the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi belongs, of having links with militants in the Sinai. The 85-year-old political and social movement prevailed in a series of polls following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and Morsi became the country’s first freely elected leader after winning elections last year.