Egypt's army vows to continue crackdown on 'terrorists' after Mansoura blast
Ahram Online , Tuesday 24 Dec 2013
Egyptian army says a car bomb was used in the deadly attack on a security compound in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura early on Tuesday, vows to sustain crackdown on 'terrorists and radicals'


Egypt's army condemned the Tuesday bomb attack that targeted a security compound in the Nile Delta's Daqahliya Governorate, killing 13 people and injuring at least 134.

Military Spokesman Colonel Ahmed Ali said the "vile terrorist operation...was carried out with a car bomb."

Ali vowed in a statement posted on Facebook that the army would press on with its crackdown on militant organisations that "toy with Egypt's national security and incite terror among citizens at this critical juncture the country is going through."

Egypt has been rocked by violent political turmoil since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July.

Frequent attacks which killed dozens of army and security personnel in North Sinai had fuelled fears that militant violence might spill over into other parts of Egypt, especially after a failed attempt to assassinate the minister of interior in September left one police personnel dead and more than 10 injured.

Egypt's army has poured troops and armour into the restive Sinai peninsula, which adjoins Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, to combat the insurgency which has spiked since Morsi's removal.

The military said on Monday it had killed 184 terrorists since August in North Sinai.

The military has "eliminated 184 terrorists and radicals," state news agency MENA quoted Army the spokesman as saying.

Ali added that 203 others had been wounded and 835 arrested.

Egyptian prosecutors have accused the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi belongs, of having links with militants in the peninsula – allegations denied by the group.

A sustained crackdown by security forces on Islamists, in which thousands have been arrested including Morsi and top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, has aroused anxiety that some might take up arms against the state.

Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, was toppled by the army in July after millions protested nationwide against his troubled year in office.

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