Egypt’s Armed Forces work on ‘integrated plan’ to defeat terrorism: Military Spox

CAIRO – 15 May 2022: Egyptian Armed Forces are working with an “integrated plan” to uproot terrorism and clean the isolated border areas of the remnants of terrorists, said Military Spokesperson for the Armed Forces Gharib Abdel Hafez in comments to Extra News channel on Sunday.

The Spokesperson’s comments were given few hours after the Ministry of Defense announced that Armed Forces targeted a number of terrorist hideouts in North Sinai over the past three days as the operations included airstrikes that resulted in the annihilation of a number of those and three four-wheel drives.

“The Armed Forces launched successive strikes to destroy the infrastructure of terrorism and cut off the supply lines, that is why those [terrorist] elements from time to time try to say that they are still present on the ground and also try from time to time to cover up the efforts of the state,” Abdel Hafez said.

He added that the military is working on an “integrated strategy” to defeat terrorism. The strategy is represented in bringing security and achieving social development in cooperation with all state institutions.

Abdel Hafez pointed out that the efforts of the armed forces in combating terrorism led to a sharp decrease in the number of terrorist elements in isolated and unpopulated areas.

Over the period between May 7 and 15, the Air Force launched a number of airstrikes that destroyed a number of terrorist outposts, and 6 four-wheel-drive vehicles, and besides the killing 16 terrorists.

The military spokesman added that law enforcement forces destroyed other terrorist outposts and four-wheel drive vehicles, and killed 11 terrorists, whose dead bodies were kept in custody until they have been handed over to their families once they were identified.

Moreover, a large number of weapons and ammunition were seized, in addition to mobile phones, he said.

Last week, a terrorist attack on a water station in Western Sinai killed 11 military personnel, drawing worldwide condemnation. This comes as the state attempts to revive North Sinai economically by infrastructure projects.

Four days earlier, another terrorist attack in North Sinai took place and led to the killing of a military officer and four soldiers, along with seven of the attackers.

A "takfiri" is someone who labels others who oppose his ideology as infidels, hence giving himself and people who share his ideology the permission to kill those "infidels," regardless of whether those against the ideology identify as Muslim or not.

The term is often used by the military alongside "terrorist" to refer to armed men in Sinai.