* Sweep part of biggest operation in Sinai since 1973 war
* Reining in militants tests Egypt’s new president
* President pledges to restore order
* Security forces find arms stashes
(Adds comments from President Mursi)
By Tamim Elyan and Yusri Mohamed
AL-ARISH, Egypt, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Egyptian soldiers killed
five Islamist militants after storming their hideout near the
border with Israel on Sunday, the latest action in an army
campaign to reimpose authority on the region, security sources
and eyewitnesses said.
The troops tracked down the militants in the settlement of
al-Goura, about 15 km (10 miles) from the frontier, as they
searched for jihadists who killed 16 Egyptian border guards and
tried to infiltrate Israel a week ago.
The latest clash is part of a security sweep that began on
Wednesday and is the biggest military operation in the region
since Egypt’s 1973 war with Israel. No one has claimed
responsibility for killing the border guards.
It is an early test for President Mohamed Mursi – a moderate
Islamist elected in June following the overthrow last year of
Hosni Mubarak – to prove he can rein in militants whose actions
on the border worry Israel. In a speech on Sunday, Mursi pledged
to restore order.
“I won’t sleep my nights restfully until the people of Sinai
are calm and settled in their homes,” he said. “We will continue
with all strength. We have what it takes to end these criminal
remnants.”
Security sources said five people had been killed – three
from bullet wounds and two more whose scorched bodies were found
in the hut which was burned.
“People in the area supplied information that there was a
group of unidentified people staying in a makeshift hut. The
area was immediately raided. The group opened fire and the
police returned fire,” one police source said.
A senior police officer earlier said six people had been
killed.
In addition to the five dead, one militant was seriously
wounded and taken to hospital in al-Arish in north Sinai.
The police sources, who did not give their names because
they are not authorised to speak to the media, said troops had
found guns, rocket launchers, a truck and a motorcycle at the
scene.
One officer said among the five dead was a Palestinian, but
the report could not be independently confirmed.
A resident of al-Goura told Reuters he had seen the lifeless
bodies of two men who were not from the area.
“They resisted very strongly,” he said by telephone after
the clash. “They fired rocket-propelled grenades at the troops.”
ISRAELI CONCERNS
Searching another area, al-Kharouba, security forces found
mortars and other weapons, said a third police source. Police
said the operation to sweep the area was continuing and five men
had been arrested.
The unidentified assailants who killed the border guards
last week stormed through a border crossing before they were
killed by Israeli forces.
This prompted Israeli calls for Egypt to reassert control
over an increasingly lawless Sinai and a wave of anger among
Egyptians, some of it directed at Egypt’s new president, who
promised to restore security in the region.
Critics say Mursi risks being soft on jihadist groups
because he is from the Muslim Brotherhood, a political Islamist
movement that has ties to the Hamas government in Gaza and a
history of hostile rhetoric towards Israel.
The Brotherhood renounced violence as a means to achieve
political change in Egypt decades ago.
“The campaign that I am leading myself with the police and
armed forces is not against the peaceful or the noble people of
Sinai,” Mursi said to mark the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
The military crackdown began in earnest on Wednesday after
unidentified men attacked several checkpoints in al-Arish.
Details of the campaign have been patchy so far because the
operation is spread over a wide, under-populated area and some
of its inhabitants are reluctant to give details of the
operation for fear of official reprisals.
The government in Cairo has brought armoured vehicles, tanks
and hundreds of extra troops into Sinai but its task is
complicated by suspicion of the authorities among local Bedouin
who often carry weapons.
Further south from al-Goura, in central Sinai, unidentified
gunmen shot at a checkpoint overnight and clashed with security
forces there, Egyptian and international officials said.
(Reporting by Yusri Mohamed, Tamim Elyan, Yasmine Saleh and Tom
Pfeiffer; Writing by Tom Pfeiffer and Edmund Blair; Editing by
Angus MacSwan and Alessandra Rizzo)
