Egypt’s army vowed Monday to “avenge” the killing of 16 guards by gunmen near the Israeli border, as President Mohamed Morsi ordered security forces to take full control of the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula on the frontier.
In Sunday’s attack, gunmen in Bedouin attire drove up to a border post and opened fire before crossing into the Jewish state in an armoured vehicle, Egyptian officials said. Israel said five gunmen were killed on its side.
The 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, under which Israel withdrew from the Sinai which it had occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, set strict limits on Egyptian troop numbers in the peninsula.
But Israel has complained of growing lawlessness on its southern border since the overthrow of veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak early last year and called for action by Cairo. “We swear in the name of God to avenge them,” the army said.
“Egyptians will not have to wait long before they see a reaction to this attack by terrorists,” it said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.
“Anyone liaising with these groups that have attacked our troops in the Sinai in recent months will pay dearly, be it inside Egypt or abroad,” it added.
Israel said two armoured vehicles were seized, one of which exploded by itself and the other of which was destroyed by a helicopter.
“The bodies of the five gunmen have been found by the Israeli army,” an Israeli military spokesman said, but did not give details. Israeli military spokesman Yoav Mordechai told army radio: “We were ready because we had previous information from Shin Bet (security service) and from military intelligence services, which allowed us to thwart a bloody attack.”
The armoured vehicle that crossed the border “fired in every direction after entering Israeli territory before being attacked by tanks and from the air,” said Mordechai. The gunmen were “members of the global jihad based in Sinai, which has become a hothouse for world terrorism because of the weak control exercised” by Egypt, he added.
President Morsi said he had given “clear instructions” that Egypt must take “full control of the Sinai.” “Those responsible for this crime will be hunted down and arrested,” he said. “Everybody will see that the Egyptian military and police forces can get these criminals wherever they are,” he said.
