Egypt’s El-Sisi extends North Sinai curfew for another 3 months

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi issued a decree Saturday extending for another three months a curfew applied seven months ago in some part of restive North Sinai.

The curfew was first applied, on 25 October 2014, for just three months but has been renewed ever since. It was originally applied a day after 31 army personnel were killed in a car bomb attack, with 30 others injured.

Last week, the 11-hour overnight curfew was reduced to eight hours.

Also last week, Twitter hashtag "#Enough_Curfew" expressed local opposition to the security measure and detailed the difficulties of living under an 11-hour curfew.

Some said the curfew did not reduce militant attacks.

Egypt's army has been fighting a decade-long militant Islamist insurgency that has spiked since the ouster of Egypt's first elected president, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, in summer 2013 following nationwide mass protests against his rule.

Hundreds of police and soldiers, as well as civilians, have been killed in militant attacks in the following months.

Sinai-based militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis claim most attacks against army and police personnel in the peninsula.

In recent months the group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group, which controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq.
  http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/128627.aspx
25/4/15
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