A top ISIL (also known as Daesh)-affiliated militant commander has been killed during an encounter with Egyptian army troops in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula, military sources say.
An Egyptian army spokesman said in a statement on Saturday that Selim Suleiman al-Haram, a senior commander of the militant group known as Velayat Sinai, was killed during a shootout outside his home in the northern Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid.
The shootout erupted after the militant commander refused to turn himself in to the soldiers who had surrounded his house in the militancy-riddled region, the statement said.
Military sources also said that al-Haram had attempted to blow himself up moments before being shot dead by the soldiers.
Egyptian forces have also reportedly recovered weapons and arms from the militant’s house.
Egyptian security forces have been facing growing violence in the volatile Sinai Peninsula mainly from Velayat Sinai.
The Takfiri militant group has claimed responsibility for numerous deadly attacks on government targets. It pledged allegiance to the Takfiri ISIL group in November 2014.
Egyptian armed forces have reportedly killed over 1,000 militants in Sinai since tensions rose when former army chief and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ousted Egypt’s first democratically-elected President Mohammed Morsi in a coup in July 2013.
Senior Egyptian officials say militancy poses an existential threat to the North African country.
