Armed Forces thwarts militant attack near Ismailia university, 2 military personnel killed, 1 civilian injured

Two Armed Forces personnel were killed on Saturday and a university student was injured during clashes between Armed Forces units and militants thought to belong to the Islamic State-affiliated Province of Sinai, according to local sources and security sources who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. 

The clashes took place in the eastern part of Qantara, Ismailia, the sources said. No official statement was published by the Armed Forces until the time of publication.

Students at the Qantara branch of Sinai University said that the campus administration had informed them that studies and mid-term exams would resume on Sunday as usual, even as university buildings display visible signs of the weekend's events, including shattered windows. 

One student, who lives on campus, said that they first heard gunfire at around 4.30 pm on Friday afternoon and that it continued over the following hours. 

Armed Forces personnel were deployed to the area over the course of the evening, said the student, and the clashes intensified at around 3.00 am on Saturday. A security source said the clashes intensified when the Armed Forces identified a group of armed militants stationed inside the East Qantara industrial school. 

For around four hours, electricity was cut off, there was no phone or internet signal, bullets struck walls and explosions detonated nearby, said two more students from the same university, whose campus faces the industrial school. They described university security staff evacuating students from the rooms situated directly adjacent to the site of the clashes to rooms further within the campus as bullets struck windows and walls, and said they had seen Armed Forces personnel positioned behind military vehicles stationed on University Street engaging militants. 

At around 6 am, a military aircraft struck the school, after which the clashes ceased. A member of the Union of Sinai Tribes, a group of tribes that have operated alongside the Armed Forces, said that three militants’ bodies were found within the school while other militants were able to retreat from the scene. 

Major Mohamed Dabbour and a conscript named Mohsen Ashraf al-Zamany were killed, said a security source speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, adding that both were residents of Sharqiya Governorate. Domestic news outlets published items covering the funeral of Dabbour on Saturday.

The Sinai University students told Mada Masr that they have heard distant gunfire from time to time over recent months, but that, beginning on Wednesday last week, the sounds were much closer to the university and continued until Saturday’s confrontation. Meanwhile, a member of the Union of Sinai Tribes said that some of the militants had infiltrated the school to the university’s south, and that some of the members of the tribal union have clashed with them multiple times over recent days. 

These latest clashes are the closest that armed engagement with suspected Province of Sinai militants has come to the geographical borders of Sinai, taking place at just a short distance from the local military base, ferry point and Mubarak al-Salam Bridge — closed for security reasons since 2013 — which connect the eastern and western sides of Qantara on either side of the Suez Canal. 

Militants belonging to the Islamic State affiliate reached the western peripheries of East Qantara in August, briefly setting up a roadblock near Gelbana village before fleeing southward.

Clashes between militants and the Armed Forces and Union of Sinai Tribes persisted in the area over the following months, with an improvised explosive device detonating in Gelbana at the outset of November, killing an Armed Forces officer and three members of the Bir al-Abd division of the tribal union.