A military officer and 10 soldiers were killed as the Egyptian army managed to foil a terrorist attack against a water pumping station east of the Suez Canal, Egyptian Military Spokesman Gharib Abdel Hafez said in a statement.
Five military personnel were severely injured as the Egyptian army battled a group of takfiri elements, the spokesman said on Saturday.
The escaping terrorists have been pursued and surrounded in one of the isolated areas in Sinai, the spokesman added.
“The armed forces affirm their continued efforts to eradicate terrorism and uproot its roots,” the spokesman stressed.
Egypt has been fighting terrorism since 2013, which saw the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood’s leading figure who ruled Egypt for a year.
In March, while celebrating the Egyptian Armed Forces’ “Martyr Day”, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said “I wish you all to understand how the price paid to achieve security is very precious.”
In a speech, President Sisi pointed out that the Egyptian people’s willpower to ouster the narrow-minded regime that existed in 2013, incurred a wave of violent terror attacks. And, that to contain it, many of the members of the Egyptian Armed Forces were made martyrs.
The president further stated that the Egyptian Armed Forces has been determined to double up on war on terror.