This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2019) |
Operation Martyr's Right | |||||
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Part of the Sinai insurgency | |||||
Map of the Sinai Peninsula. | |||||
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Belligerents | |||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (2015–present) Mohamed Ahmed Zaki (2018–present) Sedki Sobhi (2015–18) Mahmoud Tawfik (2018–present) Magdy Abdel Ghaffar (2015–18) |
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Casualties and losses | |||||
Security forces: 10 soldiers killed 3 humvees destroyed | 1,013 militants killed [3] |
Operation Martyr's Right was a military operation conducted by the Egyptian Armed Forces in cooperation with the Egyptian National Police officers, aimed at rooting out and killing jihadist militants. [4]
The operation was officially launched on 7 September 2015. [5] [6] It is considered to be the largest military action in the Sinai Peninsula in months. [7] The operation targets sites in all towns in northern area of the peninsula.
A part of the larger background of an international campaign against the Islamic State, over two hundred militants tied to the terrorist group have been reported dead. [4]
According to the official armed forces spokesman, the operation has been launched based on an estimation of the situation and fresh information about many hideouts and targets. The operation came days after the Sinai Province militant group released a video documenting its attacks on the Egyptian military in Sinai, including footage of a wire-guided missile strike that damaged a naval vessel.
Eyewitnesses in North Sinai confirmed there had been a buildup for the operation and an increased number of security checkpoints.[ citation needed ]
These checkpoints were to restrict travelers from visiting the area unless shown proof of residency and barrier walls were set up along the Gaza border as well as the EAF setting up a buffer zone in the area. This action was met in the efforts to disrupt terrorist's logistics and supply lines. [8]
The Egyptian military deployed naval special forces units in order to patrol the shore line and prevent any attempt for the militants to receive help or escape by sea.
As of 17 September, over five hundred IS fighters are believed to have been killed. [9]
First phase
On 23 September 2015, the Egyptian military spokesman announced the ending of the first phase of the operation, after 16 days, and resulting in the following:[ citation needed ]
According to an annual report issued by the U.S. State Department in June 2016, global terrorist activity for 2015 has declined nationwide in the second half of the year because of this. [10]
Second phase
The second stage of the operation began on 6 October 2015, in commemoration of Egypt's victory in the 6 October War. The second phase included development projects and reconstruction of Northern Sinai cities that were damaged by fighting in the first phase of the operation as well as humanitarian aid to civilians in those areas. [11]
Third phase
The third phase began on 21 May 2016, it was carried out by the Second Field Army using air and ground forces that span for four days resulting in killing over 150 terrorists, arresting three others, destroying a number of ammunition stores, and more than 75 hideouts. [10]
Fourth phase
The fourth and last phase of the operation that started on 19 July 2017 and lasted for seven days. The Second Field Army along with Egypt's naval forces carried out this phase in killing 150 terrorists, arresting five others, destroying 25 four-wheel vehicles, fifteen motorbikes, five bomb cars, 52 hideouts, dismantled 173 bombs, and seizing a large amount of ammunition. [10] [12]
Jabal al-Halāl is a mountain in the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt. At 910 meters above sea level, it is the highest mountain of the Khashm ar-Rih range.
Terrorism in Egypt in the 20th and 21st centuries has targeted the Egyptian government officials, Egyptian police and Egyptian army members, tourists, Sufi Mosques and the Christian minority. Many attacks have been linked to Islamic extremism, and terrorism increased in the 1990s when the Islamist movement al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya targeted high-level political leaders and killed hundreds – including civilians – in its pursuit of implementing traditional Sharia law in Egypt.
Operation Eagle was an Egyptian military campaign in the Sinai Peninsula, that was launched in August 2011 to confront the Sinai insurgency. The campaign was aimed against Islamist insurgents, who had been attacking the Egyptian security forces in the Sinai and using the area as a base from which to attack Israel since early 2011. Successive Egyptian operation against insurgents in 2012, named Operation Sinai, was initially referred as the second part of Operation Eagle. It was the first in a number of campaigns to retake the Sinai from insurgents which was achieved.
Events in the year 2004 in Israel.
The August 2012 Sinai attack occurred on 5 August 2012, when armed men ambushed an Egyptian military base in the Sinai Peninsula, killing 16 soldiers and stealing two armored cars, which they used to infiltrate into Israel. The attackers broke through the Kerem Shalom border crossing to Israel, where one of the vehicles exploded. They then engaged in a firefight with soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), during which six of the attackers were killed. No Israelis were injured.
The Sinai insurgency was an insurgency campaign in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt launched by Islamist militants against Egyptian security forces, which also included attacks on civilians. The insurgency began during the Egyptian Crisis, during which the longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
Operation Sinai was an Egyptian military campaign, launched in early August 2012, against Islamic militants within the Sinai Peninsula to crush the Sinai Insurgency. The operation came as a direct response to the 2012 Egyptian-Israeli border attack on 5 August 2012. The operation was initially reported as part of "Operation Nisr", but on 3 September 2012, the Egyptian army issued a statement requesting media sources to use the official name "Operation Sinai."
Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, or Ansar Al-Quds, was an Islamist jihadist, extremist terrorist group based in the Sinai Peninsula from 2011 to 2014.
Operation Zarb-e-Azb was a joint military offensive conducted by the Pakistan Armed Forces against various militant groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and Lashkar-e-Islam. The operation was launched on 15 June 2014 in North Waziristan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as a renewed effort against militancy in the wake of the 8 June attack on Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, for which the TTP and the IMU claimed responsibility. As of 14 July 2014, the operation internally displaced about 929,859 people belonging to 80,302 families from North Waziristan.
The 2014 Farafra ambush occurred on 19 July 2014 when unidentified gunmen ambushed a desert checkpoint in the Farafra Oasis Road in Egypt's New Valley Governorate. Twenty-two border guards were killed in the attack, which was one of the biggest since the July 2013 ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the second at the same checkpoint in less than three months.
On 24 October 2014, militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis ISIL launched two attacks on Egyptian Armed Forces positions in the Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 33 security personnel in one of the deadliest assaults on the Egyptian military in decades.
Khyber was the code-name for a 2014–2017 military offensive conducted by Pakistan's military in the Khyber Agency in four phases; Khyber-1, Khyber-2, Khyber-3 and Khyber-4.
On 29 January 2015, militants from the ISIL-affiliated Wilayat Sinai militant group launched a series of attacks on army and police bases in Arish using car bombs and mortars. The attacks, which occurred in more than six different locations, resulted in 44 deaths.
The following is a chronological timeline of fatal incidents during the ongoing Sinai insurgency, which was invigorated by a period of relative instability and political turmoil in Egypt, beginning with the 2011 uprising against former autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Insurgent attacks, however, intensified significantly following the July 2013 coup that ousted Muslim Brotherhood-backed president Mohamed Morsi and subsequent crackdown on his supporters.
On 1 July 2015, the IS-affiliated Sinai Province militant group launched the largest scale battle the Sinai Peninsula has seen since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, killing 21 soldiers in the numerous attacks which targeted multiple Egyptian army checkpoints and the Sheikh Zuweid police station in the Sinai Peninsula. More than 100 militants were reportedly killed by the army during the battle.
In July 2013, at the same time as mass protests began against the 3 July coup d'état which deposed Mohamed Morsi, and in parallel with the escalation of the already ongoing jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, pro-Muslim Brotherhood militants started violent attacks against policemen and soldiers in central and western Egypt. In the following months, new Islamist armed groups were created to reinstate Islamist rule in Egypt, like Soldiers of Egypt and the Popular Resistance Movement. Since 2013, violence in mainland Egypt has escalated and developed into a low-level Islamist insurgency against the Egyptian government.
Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, or AQSP, was an Egyptian militant jihadist organization possibly formed by a merger between al-Qaeda operatives in Sinai and Ansar al Jihad. It was Al-Qaeda's branch in the Sinai peninsula, and is composed of many Al-Qaeda factions in the area. AQSP made international headlines in November 2014 when the organization pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in a nine-minute audio speech released on Twitter.
The October 2016 Sinai attacks was a terrorist attack on an Egyptian army checkpoint in the city of Bir al-Abed, Egypt, on 14 October 2016. A group of militants armed with assault rifles and heavier weapons attacked an Egyptian army checkpoint while mortar rounds and rockets were fired directed to a military checkpoint. In response, the Egyptian military forces killed around 15 militants following the attack. The Islamic State's Wilayat Sinai branch claimed responsibility in a statement released later the same day.
Hesham Ali Ashmawy Mos'ad Ibrahim was a convicted terrorist who previously was an Egyptian Army officer, suspected by the government of having orchestrated and been involved in a number of terrorist attacks on security targets and state institutions, including the 2014 Farafra ambush and the 2015 assassination of Prosecutor general Hisham Barakat.
Colonel Ahmed Mansy was the commander of Egypt's Sa'ka Forces Thunderbolt Battalion 103.