10 militants killed, 43 arrested in security raids in Egypt's Sinai

At least ten extremists were killed and some 43 others were arrested Wednesday during a security raid in Egypt's North Sinai province in northeast of the capital Cairo, a security source told Xinhua. "The extremists exchanged fire with the security forces who managed to destroy 38 houses, 85 huts, 22 vehicles and 30 bikes belonging to the extremists," the source said, noting the raids took place in the cities of Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah. The raids are part of a massive military-police campaign on extremist Islamists whose terrorist attacks have recently mounted in the peninsula. Over the past few weeks, similar security operations in Sinai left dozens of extremists killed and many others arrested. Since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July, furious Islamist militants took the Sinai Peninsula as a stronghold for their attacks against security personnel and buildings. Al-Qaida-inspired, Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group claimed responsibility for most of them. The group had previously claimed responsibility for a series of blasts in Cairo and other governorates, including a recent tourist bus blast that killed three South Koreans and the Egyptian bus driver in Taba town in South Sinai.