Separate bomb attacks kill seven in Egypt’s Sinai

In the first incident on Wednesday, senior local security officials said three passers-by were killed when a roadside bomb went off south of the border town of Rafah.
 
Separately, two army officers and two soldiers were killed in a bomb blast during a search operation elsewhere in Rafah, security sources said.
 
Authorities are carrying on an investigation to determine the motive behind the acts of violence.
 
No individual or group has yet claimed responsibility for the Sinai attacks. However, such deadly incidents are often blamed on militant groups affiliated with the ISIL Takfiri terrorists.
 
Last week, at least four members of security personnel were killed in separate attacks carried out by militants in the restive North Sinai province.
 
According to Egyptian security officials, militants gunned down two policemen in el-Arish, the provincial capital, in an overnight attack on May 8. Later in the day, another policeman and a retired officer were also targeted and killed by militants respectively outside a school and at a market place in the city.
 
The Sinai Peninsula has long been considered a safe haven for gunmen who use the region as a base for their acts of terror.
 
Since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, in July 2013, gunmen have launched terrorist attacks in Sinai, killing a large number of members of Egypt’s security forces and civilians.
 
Last November, the ISIL Takfiri terrorists gained a foothold in Egypt, when Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group, pledged allegiance to ISIL and changed its name to Velayat Sinai (Sinai Caliphate).
 
The Sinai-based group killed 30 people and injured dozens in a series of coordinated attacks in the region in late January.