Report: Israel okays Egypt request to deploy more military forces in Sinai
Egypt has been reeling from a series of attacks by Islamic extremists against soldiers and police as part of their anti-government insurgency.
By ARIEL BEN SOLOMONSmoke rises as a house is blown up during a military operation by Egyptian security forces in the Egyptian city of Rafah(photo credit: REUTERS)
Israel has approved Egypt’s request to deploy two additional infantry battalions and a fleet of attack helicopters to the Sinai Peninsula, Army Radio reported on Thursday.Since the border area of the Sinai is a demilitarized zone as per the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Cairo must procure Jerusalem’s consent to any deployment of additional forces in the area.Meanwhile, a bomb planted in a train killed two Egyptian policemen and wounded 11 other people when it exploded at a station in the Nile Delta province of Menufia late on Wednesday, state television said. Another small bomb exploded about an hour later in a Cairo metro station, wounding three people, the state-run Al-Ahram news portal reported.Egypt has been reeling from a series of attacks by Islamic extremists against soldiers and police as part of an anti-government Islamist insurgency.Egyptian forces are continuing their campaign to root out Islamist jihadists in Sinai, seizing weapons caches and destroying seven new tunnels, bringing the total to 1834, the daily Al-Youm al-Sabaa reported on Thursday.Meanwhile, Egypt received a $1 billion grant from Kuwait earlier this week, an Egyptian government source said on Thursday, the latest in billions of dollars of aid to arrive from Gulf Arab allies since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi last year.Jerusalem Post staff and Reuters contributed to this report.
