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Assailants blow up gas pipeline in Egypt's Sinai

Xinhua, January 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

Unknown assailants blew up a main natural gas pipeline on Thursday evening near Arish city of Egypt's restive North Sinai province bordering the Palestinian Gaza Strip and Israel, a security source told Xinhua.

The assailants used explosives to remotely blow up the pipeline at Al-Midan area, about 15 km from the entrance of Arish city, the source said, expecting the perpetrators belong to the Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) militant group, which has changed its name to "Sinai State" and declared loyalty to the regional Islamic State (IS) militant group.

The blast cut off the natural gas supplies in the western area of Arish city.

The same pipeline, which provides natural gas to residents and factories and formerly to Jordan and Israel, has been blown up about 30 times over the past few years amid turmoil that resulted from the ouster of two heads of state since 2011.

Earlier on Thursday, the police killed three militants in Sharqiya province north of the capital Cairo during fire exchange while arresting them for an attempted assassination of a university official, according to state-run MENA news agency.

Investigations showed that the three militants were two college students and an electrician in their late 20s and 30s, who failed to gun down a university official in December but the wounded man was rescued and they ran away.

Egypt has been suffering growing anti-government terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the army ousted former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year rule.

Most of the anti-government attacks, including gas pipeline explosions, were claimed by the Sinai-based militants.

A couple of days ago, at least 61 militants were killed and 10 others arrested in security raids launched by the Egyptian armed forces in North Sinai's Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah cities .

Security raids in Sinai are part of the country's "war against terrorism" declared by then-military chief and now President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi following Morsi's removal. Endit