Egyptian Officers Shot Dead in North Sinai

Ma'an reports than Egyptian authorities have discovered the body of an army officer who had been shot dead in the northern Sinai late Monday.

Military officials identified the victim as 35-year-old officer Abdullah Abdul-Minem. His body was found with a bullet wound in the head in Sheikh Zuweid city near El-Arish.

A second officer was shot by unidentified gunmen on Monday on his return home to El-Arish. The man was found in a pool of blood after having been shot several times in the abdomen, and was evacuated by helicopter to a military hospital in Cairo.

Early Monday, Egyptian security forces made sweeping arrests in the northern Sinai, detaining 38 suspects in El-Arish, a security official told Ma'an.

It was also reported that families in the Egyptian border city of Rafah turned in to the authorities two men suspected of planning a bomb attack on the central security headquarters in the city.

Egyptian security forces have been battling for control of the Sinai peninsula since the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year loosened the grip of state security in the isolated Sinai.