Egyptian army launches ‘major operation’ in Sinai

Egypt has launched a “major military operation” against ISIS militants, the army announced in a statement on Tuesday, killing 29 people.

"Units of the police and army launched Operation Right of the Martyr at dawn to eliminate terrorist elements in Rafah, Sheikh Zuweid and El-Arish in North Sinai," the army said in a statement, according to Agence France-Presse.

"Twenty-nine miscreants were killed... while an officer and a non-commissioned soldier were killed and four others wounded when their vehicle was blown up by a bomb."

Egypt has been struggling to quell an insurgency in the peninsula since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohammad Mursi in 2013.

The government says hundreds of police and soldiers have been killed, many of them in attacks claimed by ISIS’s Sinai Province affiliate.

(With AFP)