Egypt army kills terrorist, arrests 22 suspects in Sinai: spokesman

CAIRO, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian army killed a terrorist and arrested 22 suspects in North Sinai province bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, the Egyptian military spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The Second Field Army in North Sinai, in cooperation with the Air Forces, managed over the past few days to kill a highly dangerous terrorist element with a machine gun and communication devices in his possession," military spokesman Tamer al-Refaay said in the statement.

He added that 22 others, "suspected of providing support to the terrorist element," were also arrested during the riads.

"The forces also destroyed a storehouse containing a large amount of projectiles, bombs and explosive devices," he said.

The raids came during a renewed partial three-month curfew in North Sinai that started on Saturday, along with a similar renewed nationwide state of emergency.

North Sinai has been the center of terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers following the military removal of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year rule and his currently blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood group.

The attacks later extended to reach several other provinces including the capital Cairo and started to target the Coptic minority via church bombings.

Most of the attacks were claimed by the so-called Wilayat Sinai (Sinai state or province), a Sinai-based group affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) regional terrorist group.

Terrorism in Egypt did not stop at targeting security men and Copts, as a terrorist operation last month against a mosque in North Sinai's Arish city killed at least 310 Muslim worshippers and injured over 120 others, marking the deadliest terror attack and the first against a Muslim mosque in Egypt's modern history.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the mosque attack.

President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered the army's chief of staff in late November 2017 to restore security and stability in the restive part of the Sinai Peninsula within three months.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian security forces have killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared by Sisi, the army chief then, following Morsi's ouster. Enditem