It does not feel like Eid in North Sinai

It is the third day of Eid el-Fitr in Egypt. Earlier Friday, Egypt’s ministry of interior announced that its forces in North Sinai killed 8 suspected terrorists or as officially called “terrorist elements” involved in Al-Arish checkpoint attack that place on Wednesday.

This announcement came less than 48 hours of its announcement that security forces killed another 14 suspected terrorists or as officially called “terrorist elements” for their alleged involvement in Wednesday’s attack.

Earlier Wednesday , a group of militant terrorists attacked a security checkpoint called “Batal-14” or “The hero-14” located West of Al-Arish in North Sinai governorate

The security checkpoint was following the ministry of interior.

According to official statement of the interior ministry , at least 8 police personnel were killed in the shootout between those terrorists and the checkpoint.

Five terrorist militants were killed in the shootout.

Later that day Daesh claimed responsibility of  the attack , no surprise here as it claimed most of the attacks in the past five years.

It claimed that it killed 10 policemen in two attacks targeting two different locations yet it only mentioned “Batal-14” and did not mentioned the other one.

Then it released video report about the attack bragging about it.

The video showed the attackers about at least 24 armed young men whose faces were either blurred or masked.

They were all young teenagers as it appeared between the ages of 16 to 20 at most.

The video also shows how the ISIS boys kept an eye on that checkpoint since it was being constructed. 

Now here are what I think if you are interested to know according to my humble knowledge.

The Wednesday attack targeted a police checkpoint and not an army checkpoint.

I guess that the police checkpoint was chosen because it could be less equipped than army checkpoint.

Yes , we are speaking about the police’s special operation units in the Central security forces.

The choice of date and time also played role.

Early morning right after the Eid’s prayer was a suitable time to attack the checkpoint and its unit when they were a little bit off guard in a natural human way .

One must wonder if the 5th of June also played a role here.

Choosing the date of the anniversary of the Egyptian army’s worst defeat in 20th century as the date of an attack against security forces in North Sinai is not something that can’t be ignored.

The young age of the attackers means that ISIS-franchise lost many of its adult members that it began to recruit

It also indicates the government is losing the heart and minds of some of the local population. 

Why did those kids join that group ? how many other local kids have joined it too as well ?

Questions that must be answered officially.

From couple of weeks ago , an ISIS online publication announced that its North Sinai franchise joined that “war of attrition” declared by the group against the countries that fight it.

We should have seen this coming because that terrorist organization has not stopped its operations in the past few months despite the military operation against it.

You know what is really sad.

This won’t be the last attack of its kind in North Sinai as long as the same old strategies and polices are being adopted and the same reactions will be repeated over and over.

The racist and ignorant comments about our people in North Sinai make my blood boil.

It is like an ugly loop

Anyhow belated happy Eid from Egyptian Chronicles.