YEREVAN, JULY 13, ARMENPRESS. The Egyptian army has killed scores of militants in the northern Sinai Peninsula within the past ten days, a military spokesman said Sunday. As Armenpress reports citing “middleeastmonitor.com,” in a statement posted on Facebook, Brigadier-General Mohamed Samir said that army forces had killed 252 militants in the ten-day period from July 1 to 11. According to Samir, 76 individuals suspected of engaging in militant activity had also been detained over the same period, 13 of whom had been wanted by the authorities.

The spokesman added that 58 vehicles and 43 motorbikes used by militants to carry out attacks had been destroyed during the same ten-day period. Egyptian security forces have stepped up their campaign against suspected militants in the region since a series of coordinated attacks on army checkpoints in North Sinai last week left at least 17 soldiers dead. On Saturday, at least one person was killed by a car bomb that went off outside the Italian consulate in central Cairo.

Saturday's attack was later claimed by the "Province of Sinai," a Daesh-linked militant group active in the northern Sinai Peninsula. Since mid-2013, when Egypt's military ousted Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, northern Sinai has become the epicenter of a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security personnel. For the last two years, Egyptian security forces have waged a fierce campaign against militants in the volatile peninsula, which shares borders with both Israel and the blockaded Gaza Strip.