An Al-Qaida-linked group active in the Sinai Peninsula said Saturday that its fighters were the target of a reported Israeli drone strike into Egyptian territory, a rare operation that could indicate increased Egyptian-Israeli security cooperation against militants in the lawless border zone.

Archive photo of Israeli Heron TP drone, also known locally as the Eitan. – Photo: AP

Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis, in a statement posted on a militant website, said that a Israel Defense Forces drone that crossed into Egyptian airspace killed four fighters as they were preparing a cross-border rocket strike into Israel. It said the dead were from Egyptian Sinai tribes and that the rocket squad’s leader escaped.

Egyptian security officials, speaking anonymously on Friday, said that a drone firing from the Israeli side of the border had killed five suspected militants.

The conflicting accounts could not be reconciled. Both said the site of the strike was about five kilometers (three miles) inside Egypt.

However, Egyptian armed forces spokesperson Ahmad Mohammad Ali denied the Israeli strike had occurred, adding that the Egyptian army continues to search the region and investigate the reports. Israeli aircraft did not breach Egypt’s air space, nor was such an operation coordinated between the two countries, he said.

Ali further noted that the Egyptian military continues to wage a campaign to stop terror groups in Sinai.

Israel has maintained official silence about the strike, suggesting that if it was involved, it might be trying to avoid embarrassing the Egyptian military.

Security cooperation

The strike could signal a significant new level of security cooperation between Egypt and Israel following the military coup that ousted Egypt’s president, Mohammed Morsi, last month. The military has alleged that Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement had turned a blind eye to Islamic militants in the Sinai.

The militant statement said that there was Egyptian air activity in the area but after the Egyptian aircraft withdrew, the Israeli drone attacked. A tribal leader in the area said that an Egyptian helicopter flew over the site a few minutes after the drone strike.

The Egyptian security officials said the Israeli attack was launched in cooperation with Egyptian authorities, despite Cairo’s past insistence that the government would not allow anyone else to use its territories to launch attacks against jihadi groups.

Egypt’s military and security forces have long been engaged in a battle against Islamic militants in the northern half of the peninsula. Militants and tribesmen also have been engaged in smuggling and other criminal activity in the area for years.

Militants have also fired rockets into Israel and staged other cross-border attacks on previous occasions.

View original HAARETZ publication at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.540733