CAIRO — Egyptian helicopter gunships and tanks pounded suspected hideouts and weapon caches of Islamic militants on Saturday in the northern Sinai Peninsula in what locals say is the largest operation in the lawless region for years.
Nine militants and two soldiers were killed in the raids, security officials said.
Officials say that the military is hunting hundreds of militants thought to be responsible for a series of attacks in the region they overran after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The militants, the officials say, belong to well-known al-Qaeda-inspired groups that seek the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate in northern Sinai, a region bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Attacks in the region have increased since the July 3 military coup that toppled President Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist, prompting the military offensive.
Early Saturday, residents said they saw winding columns of trucks and armored vehicles pour into the area. Some said they hadn’t seen soldiers on foot in their villages in decades. Communications were jammed for hours, as authorities seized control of two telephone exchanges.
Military helicopters hovered overhead in a dozen villages concentrated near two border towns of Rafah and Sheikh Zuweyid, security officials said. Airstrikes targeted shacks thought to be gathering points of militants, they said. Soldiers later stormed homes searching for suspected fighters.
“Successive strikes are aimed at causing paralysis of the militant groups and cutting communications between each other,” a security official said. “The offensive is carried out within a time frame where there will be periods of calm for intelligence before resuming once again.
“We aim for cleansing the whole region of militants and prevent them from coming back,” he added.
Other officials said two soldiers were killed in a nighttime attack by militants in the town of Sheikh Zuweyid in northern Sinai. The soldiers were there as part of the offensive.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief journalists.
In a statement, Army spokesman Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said nine suspected militants were killed Saturday and nine others detained.
Sheik Hassan Khalaf, a tribal leader from al-Joura, one of the targeted villages in the area, said the assault was “by far the largest operation we have seen and the one we have been waiting for.
“Starting today, you will not hear of attacks on army or police checkpoints,” Khalaf said. “They either have to flee or get arrested.”
