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Egypt arrests Sinai leading militant

18 October 2014 02:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Egyptian military forces arrested on Friday a leading member of al-Qaida-inspired Sinai- based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group in a raid on southern Arish city of North Sinai province, a security source told Xinhua, APA reports.

"Walid Waked Attallah is leader of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis military wing and he is the one responsible for last night's blast that targeted a police vehicle and killed three police recruits in Arish," the source said.

On Thursday, 11 people were injured as two homemade explosive devices went off around a mosque in Gharbiya's city of Tanta, around 80 km north of the capital of Cairo. Two days earlier, more than a dozen of people were injured in an explosion near the Supreme Courthouse in downtown Cairo.

Terrorist attacks have risen since the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi by the army last July and the massive security crackdown on his supporters, which left about 1, 000 of them killed and thousands more arrested.

The attacks targeted security men and their premises in the restive Sinai Peninsula and then extended to hit the capital Cairo and other provinces across the country.

A recent official report said the death toll from such attacks has reached nearly 500, most of whom are soldiers and policemen. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, which is blacklisted by Egypt and the United States as "a terrorist organization," has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.