Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — Egypt’s military has deployed its U.S.-origin Apache attack
helicopter fleet to track and destroy suspected insurgency strongholds in
the Sinai Peninsula.

Security sources said the Egyptian Air Force has deployed up to a
dozen AH-64 Apache attack helicopters in Sinai in mid-2013.

They said the Apache fleet patrols the skies of northeastern Sinai on a daily basis in search of Al Qaida and other insurgency strongholds.

“The Apache is the best platform available for persistent
counter-terrorist operations,” a source said.

The sources said the Apaches, acquired from the United States in 1995, have been enhanced with advanced targeting systems that could operate at all
times. They said the targeting systems enabled the killing of dozens of suspected Al Qaida-aligned operatives around the Sinai border with the
Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

On Aug. 11, the Egyptian military reported the killing of between 12 and 25 insurgents. The sources said three Apache helicopters fired Hellfire air-to-ground missiles at insurgency targets in Sheik Zweid near the Gaza Strip.

Later, the Egyptian military said the Apache strike was meant against
unidentified insurgents linked to the killing of 16 Egyptian Army soldiers
in August 2012. Hamas has been blamed for helping in the bombing of an army
base along the Israeli border.

The sources said the U.S. military has been training Egyptian pilots and
other personnel on the use of the Apaches and other aircraft in
counter-insurgency operations. They said such training, employed ahead of an
imminent offensive in central Sinai, had been resisted under the regime of
former President Hosni Mubarak. On Aug. 13, Islamist fighters, firing
rocket-propelled grenades, attacked security facilities around El Arish.

Military spokesman Col. Ahmed Ali said the targets in Sheik Zweid were
also responsible for the abduction of seven soldiers and security officers
near El Arish in May 2013. He said the helicopters also destroyed a weapons
warehouse.

“The armed forces conducted a quality operation against the terrorist
group whose hands were contaminated with the blood of our martyrs in the
army and police in northern Sinai,” Ali said.

  AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, Col. Ahmed Ali, Egypt’s Apaches targeting Al Qaida, Gaza Strip, Hellfire missiles, other Sinai insurgents, Sheik Zweid