CAIRO: A powerful local tribe in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula says it killed eight suspected Daesh fighters in battle and captured three more.
The Tarabeen tribe has clashed repeatedly with a local Daesh affiliate in recent weeks, opening a new front against the insurgency raging in the northern Sinai, which borders Gaza and Israel.
Moussa Al-Delh, a senior member of the tribe, said the clashes broke out Tuesday in the town of Rafah along the Gaza border, and that no tribesmen were killed.
Egyptian security forces have been battling the extremists in the northern Sinai for years. The insurgency grew far more deadly following the military overthrow of an elected Islamist president in 2013. Daesh has claimed three recent church bombings on the mainland that killed dozens of worshippers.
Egypt tribesmen kill 8 suspected Daesh militants in Sinai
Egypt tribesmen kill 8 suspected Daesh militants in Sinai
Helicopter crashes in Libya during medical evacuation, killing 3
- The Matan Al-Sarra air base lies in an area under the control of Libya’s Benghazi-based eastern administration led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, but authorities in the east did not comment on the crash
TRIPOLI: A helicopter has crashed in southeastern Libya, killing a medic and two crew members carrying out a medical evacuation, state media said Tuesday.
Libyan news agency LANA said the chopper went down overnight near an air base in the Kufra region about 60 kilometers north of the border between Libya and Chad.
The aircraft was attempting to evacuate a soldier who had been involved in a road accident in the desert, LANA said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known and it was unclear what happened to the injured soldier.
Libyan media reports said two foreign nationals were among those on board who were killed, but this was not confirmed by authorities.
The Matan Al-Sarra air base lies in an area under the control of Libya’s Benghazi-based eastern administration led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, but authorities in the east did not comment on the crash.
Libya remains split between the eastern administration and a UN-backed government in the west led by Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah. The LANA news agency is under the control of western authorities.
Libya has struggled to recover from chaos that erupted following a 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled and killed longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi.
