• 15:28
  • Wednesday ,14 January 2015
العربية

Unidentified assailants shoot teacher in North Sinai

By Aswat Masriya

Copts and Poliltical Islam

00:01

Wednesday ,14 January 2015

Unidentified assailants shoot teacher in North Sinai

Unidentified assailants shot a school teacher on Tuesday in North Sinai's town of Sheikh Zuweid, tribal sources said.Unidentified assailants shot a school teacher on Tuesday in North Sinai's town of Sheikh Zuweid, tribal sources said.

Bullet marks were found on the teacher's body, which was dumped on the side of the road, the sources added to Aswat Masriya. Police sources suggested that Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Egypt's most dangerous militant group, could be behind the shooting.

The number of security personnel and civilians killed in armed attacks by militants in North Sinai significantly surged during the past few months.

Residents of the Sheikh Zuweid region found on August 20, 2014 the decapitated bodies of four civilians.

In a video allegedly released in August by the group, they claimed responsibility for the beheading of the four civilians, accusing them of providing intelligence to Israel.

Similar executions of civilians have been repeatedly occurring since then, gripping the lives of dozens of residents.

Unidentified gunmen kidnapped on Sunday police officer Ayman al-Desouki, who worked at the Rafah border-crossing.

Armed forces Spokesman Mohamed Samir accused "terrorist elements" of killing the officer, in a statement released earlier on Tuesday.

The kidnapped officer was heading to work in a taxi on the Rafah-Sheikh Zuweid International Road, when militants abducted him, the prosecution said.

Militants have stepped up attacks targeting security forces in Egypt, particularly in the Sinai Peninsula, since the army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013, which followed mass protests against his rule.

At least 30 military personnel were killed in a suicide blast which targeted a security checkpoint in Sinai's Sheikh Zuweid on October 24, 2014, in the worst militant attack since Mursi's ouster.

Egypt’s most active militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which changed its name to Sinai Province since pledging allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack in a video it allegedly released three weeks later.

Militants in North Sinai have recently engaged in the kidnap and execution of Sinai residents whom they accuse of cooperation with security apparatuses.

Residents of North Sinai's Sheikh Zuweid found on Saturday the bodies of two decapitated youths, police sources said.

Tribal sources said the deceased youths were kidnapped two weeks ago by "unidentified gunmen under the pretext of cooperating with security apparatuses."

Police sources said on Saturday that there are currently seven youths kidnapped by the militant group, also for cooperating with security forces.