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Senior commander gunned down near Cairo

Egyptian army special forces man a temporary checkpoint outside Sharm el-Sheikh airport on November 11, 2015. (Photo by AFP)

Gunmen have killed a senior Egyptian army officer, who served in the country’s restive Sinai Peninsula, on the outskirts of the capital, Cairo.

Brigadier General Adel Raga'i, a commander of an armored division in troubled northern Sinai, was gunned down near his home in Obour district on Saturday.

"Minutes after he left the house I heard gunfire, I went out to find him covered in blood ... he received a lot of bullets ... He died instantly," said the commander’s wife, Samia Zain El Abedeen.

A militant group called Louwaa el Thawra, or the Revolution Brigade, claimed responsibility for the attack in a message posted on Twitter. The message has yet to be independently verified.

A state of emergency was declared in Sinai in 2014, following a deadly assault that claimed the lives of over 30 soldiers.

In 2015, Egyptian armed forces launched a massive operation against the militants in northern Sinai, following coordinated terrorist attacks on several army checkpoints that claimed the lives of 21 soldiers in July the same year.

Velayat Sinai Takfiri terrorist group, previously known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which pledged allegiance to the Daesh terrorist group in 2014, has been responsible for most of the attacks in the Sinai Peninsula as well as Cairo.  

Such attacks have increased since the 2013 ouster by the military of Egypt's first democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi.

Raga'i was the most senior military official to be assassinated since the toppling of Morsi.


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