Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — For the first time, Egypt has reported an Israeli military
strike in the Sinai Peninsula.

Security sources said an Israel Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle fired
a missile that killed a Bedouin fighter in northeastern Sinai on Aug. 26.

The sources identified the alleged target as Ibrahim Maden, 35, said to have been a member of an Al Qaida-aligned group that claimed responsibility for an attack in southern Israel.

“An Egyptian intelligence report said Ibrahim Owida Nasser Madan was hit by a missile fired by an Israeli UAV while riding his motorcycle south of Al Qasiya, 15 kilometers from the Israeli border,” the Palestinian news agency Maan said.

Egypt did not release an official statement on the killing. Maan as well
as Egypt’s media said Egyptian intelligence assessed that the purported UAV was part of an Israeli campaign to assassinate rocket squads in Sinai. The report echoed that of Bedouins in the area of the explosion.

Israel has denied any involvement in Madan’s death.

The Egyptian sources said an investigation has been launched and one
possibility was that Madan was killed in an explosion while trying to fire a
rocket toward the Jewish state.

The sources said Madan had been arrested during
Operation Eagle, the counter-insurgency mission that followed the Aug. 5
attack on an Egyptian Army position in Rafah in which 16 soldiers were
killed.

In mid-2012, the Israeli military beefed up ground and air operations
along the border with Sinai. The sources said Israel deployed main battle
tanks, helicopters and UAVs to patrol the border and look up to 10
kilometers into Sinai.

  Al Qasiya, Bedouin terrorist, Egypt: Israeli drone attack on rocket squad kills terrorist in Sinai, Ibrahim Owida Nasser Madan, Operation Eagle, Rafah