CAIRO: Egypt's army vowed yesterday to “avenge” the killing of 16 guards by gunmen near the Israeli border, as President Muhammad Mursi ordered security forces to take full control of the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula on the frontier.
In Sunday's attack, gunmen in Bedouin attire drove up to a border post and opened fire before crossing into the Jewish state in an armoured vehicle, Egyptian officials said. Israel said five gunmen were killed on its side. The 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, under which Israel withdrew from the Sinai which it had occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, set strict limits on Egyptian troop numbers in the peninsula.
“We swear in the name of God to avenge them,” the army said.
“Egyptians will not have to wait long before they see a reaction to this attack by terrorists,” it said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency. “Anyone liaising with these groups that have attacked our troops in the Sinai in recent months will pay dearly, be it inside Egypt or abroad,” it added.
Israel said two armoured vehicles were seized, one of which exploded by itself and the other of which was destroyed by a helicopter.
“The bodies of the five gunmen have been found by the Israeli army,” an Israeli military spokesman said, but did not give details.
President Mursi said he had given “clear instructions” that Egypt must take “full control of the Sinai.”
An interior ministry team has been sent to the site to investigate the attack, the ministry said.
Mursi, who only took the oath of office on June 30 to become Egypt's first freely elected leader and its first head of state since Mubarak's overthrow, said those who committed the “cowardly” attack and those who worked with them would pay dearly.
“Those responsible for this crime will be hunted down and arrested,” he said.”Everybody will see that the Egyptian military and police forces can get these criminals wherever they are,” he said.
The president declared three days of mourning to honour the “martyrs and wounded in the same way as martyrs and wounded of the Jan. 25 revolution” that toppled Mubarak, according to state media.
The Sinai is home to Egypt's Red Sea resorts, a source of lucrative tourist income, and is also where the country's Bedouin, long marginalized under the Mubarak regime, are based. To stop any attacks and illegal cross-border activities Israel has speeded up construction of a wall fitted with an electronic alert system along its 240-kilometer (150-mile) border with Egypt.
Meanwhile, Hamas said on Monday that its security forces in the Gaza Strip are on the alert after Egypt's army vowed to avenge the killing of 16 guards by gunmen near the Israeli border.
Hamas has dismissed the idea that militants from inside their territory were involved.
“The national security services are on a 100-percent state of alert to maintain common security between the Gaza Strip and Egypt,” Jamal al-Jarrah, head of the Hamas security forces, wrote on the interior ministry website.
He accused Israel of encouraging speculation that Gaza Palestinians were involved in Sunday's attack.
“The occupation is trying to spread its rumours and hold Gaza responsible for the attack, to cause tension in relations between the Palestinian and Egyptian peoples,” said Jarrah. “We assert that we are working around the clock to maintain common security.”
The Hamas government in Gaza met later yesterday to discuss the situation.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, speaking from his headquarters in the West bank city of Ramallah, condemned the attack.
“President Abbas, the Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership condemn with the strongest of words this crime that was committed by the hands of a terrorist group,” his spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh said in a statement
“Despite its gravity, this crime will not undermine the depth of relations between the two peoples and the Palestinian and Egyptian leaderships,” he added. “It will not affect Egypt's national role in permanently committing to support our cause and our people's struggle.”
