21 Egyptian Soldiers killed in Attack on Border Checkpoint

Local Editor

Egypt's military said militants firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a border checkpoint Saturday, killing 21 soldiers in one of the biggest assaults on security forces in years.

The attack in a desert area 630 kilometers west of Cairo also left four soldiers wounded, the military said in a statement, blaming "terrorists".

It said a rocket propelled grenade fired by the militants set off an explosion in an ammunition depot at the al-Farafrah post, killing the soldiers.

Militants have stepped up attacks on the security forces since Muslim Brotherhood member president Mohammed Mursi was toppled in July 2013 as the army struggles to quell an extremist insurgency that has killed scores of soldiers and police, mainly in the Sinai Peninsula.

The military said two vehicles booby trapped to blow up were used in the attack, and bomb experts have defused the explosives.
State news agency MENA said three of the assailants were killed in the assault, the second at the same checkpoint in less than three months.

The attack followed repeated warnings by officials of a possible spillover of violence from across the border with Libya, where relentless bloodshed over the past few months has sparked fears of all-out civil war.
Libya has been awash with weapons and gripped by unrest since the NATO-backed uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with rival militias who ousted him vying for control.

The presidency announced three days of national mourning after the attack, one of the biggest since more than a dozen soldiers were killed by gunmen in August 2012 in the town of Rafah that borders the Gaza Strip.

That assault, like Saturday's, occurred during the month of Ramadan when soldiers were eating the Iftar meal to break their fast.

A similar attack on Egyptian border guards in June killed six guards.
Egyptian officials accuse the Brotherhood of being behind attacks and designated it a "terrorist group" in December after a deadly car bombing on a police station north of Cairo killed more than a dozen people.

The movement has denied involvement and many of the attacks have been claimed by Sinai-based group Beit al-Maqdis.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team