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Militants in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula shot and killed five Egyptian conscripts on Thursday, as the Egyptian army searched for eight missing servicemen, lost after an attack on a navy ship in the Mediterranean Sea.
According to security officials, the military had carried out air strikes in the Sinai Peninsula, killing three members of militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.
Additionally, 16 people were injured in Cairo on Thursday in the chaos following a small explosion on a metro train during rush hour.
The attack in Sinai, in which three soldiers and two police conscripts were drawn out of their vehicles before they were shot dead, seemed like a trademark Ansar Beit al-Maqdis attack; the group often creates impromptu checkpoints in the peninsula.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has led an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula which has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the Egyptian army overthrew former President Mohammed Morsi. It is believed that the group was behind a similar attack last month, in which at least 30 soldiers were killed.
On Thursday, the military released a statement saying that it arrested 25 suspected militants and a higher-up from Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.
The ambush in Sinai comes a day after an attack on a navy boat in the Mediterranean left eight servicemen lost at sea and wounded five others.
The military, which late on Wednesday, said that it was conducting search and rescue operations for the lost servicemen, has called the assault a “terrorist” attack. A day later, the goals and identities of the assailants still remain unknown. According to security officials, dozens of suspects were rounded up at sea after the assault, and are still being interrogated.
It isn’t immediately clear if the assailants were “terrorists” or weapons and drug smugglers who use the sea. According to the military, four boats used by the attackers were destroyed during the assault.
State-owned daily Ahram reported that a navy patrol boat approached three boats that aroused suspicion, before it came under fire; the daily cited an anonymous source saying that they were probably smugglers.