{(CNN)The Egyptian military has launched airstrikes on “terrorist positions” in the Sinai peninsula “to avenge the blood” of its soldiers killed in an attack on a military checkpoint Friday, according to an army statement.}<\/p>\n
While the military did not specifically name the group, ISIS claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack that left at least 12 soldiers and 15 of the assailants dead.<\/p>\n
According to the army statement, released Saturday, the three-hour air operation targeted several concentrations of militants, destroyed ammunition and weapons storage facilities, destroyed seven vehicles and killed an unspecified number of militants.<\/p>\n
The attackers hit the checkpoint using four-wheel drive vehicles, the Egyptian military said.<\/p>\n
It’s the latest attack in a battle for control over the Sinai Peninsula between Islamist militants and Egyptian forces.<\/p>\n
Militancy in the Sinai increased dramatically after the army toppled President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013.<\/p>\n
In August, the military said it had killed a key ISIS-allied leader in the region, along with dozens of his fighters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{(CNN)The Egyptian military has launched airstrikes on “terrorist positions” in the Sinai peninsula “to avenge the blood” of its soldiers killed in an attack on a military checkpoint Friday, according to an army statement.} While the military did not specifically name the group, ISIS claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack that left at least 12 soldiers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[253],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-cnn"],"bylines":[{"id":253,"name":"CNN","slug":"cnn","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":109}],"contributors":[{"id":253,"name":"CNN","slug":"cnn","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":109}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29490"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29490"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}