Egypt to create security zone for tourists at Taba

Egyptian security authorities to up inspections measures at border area near Eilat following suicide attack on tourist bus.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON
Police rush towards Taba crossing following explosion of tourist bus. (photo credit: COURTESY OF ISRAEL HATZALAH)
Police rush towards Taba crossing following explosion of tourist bus.
(photo credit: COURTESY OF ISRAEL HATZALAH)
Egypt’s Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim toured the Taba border area near Eilat on Thursday, pledging to implement a buffer zone.
A suicide attack on a bus of South Korean tourists killed four Christian pilgrims in Taba on Sunday.
Ibrahim said security officers will check all visitors using new weapon and explosive detection equipment and use dogs to secure the border.
Unidentified gunmen killed a policeman and injured three in Egypt’s Sharqiya Governorate on Thursday.
Earlier that day, another drive-by shooting wounded two soldiers in Zagazig, the capital of Sharqiya Governorate, and on Wednesday a military officer was seriously injured in Belbeis in central Sharqiya.
The Egyptian army killed a number of suspected jihadists in Sinai overnight Wednesday.
Apache helicopters launched an offensive on terrorist hideouts in north Sinai, killing at least 10 suspected jihadists, Egyptian military sources told the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency.
The sources said they believe they killed leaders of the jihadist group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis and that three smuggling tunnels to Gaza were destroyed.
Egyptian army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Egyptians on Thursday to support the army and police in their fight against terrorism.
On Saturday, the Egyptian army destroyed 10 tunnels and seven homes used to hide those tunnels on the border with the Gaza Strip in the Sinai Peninsula, an Egyptian military source told Ma’an.
Also on Saturday, the Egyptian army safely detonated three bombs placed in military vehicles and armored cars in the northern Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid and raided Islamist strongholds in the area, the Egyptian security source told Ma’an.
The Egyptian army and police in Sinai have been targeted by Islamist rebels since the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi last year.