Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — The Egyptian Army continues to sustain attacks near the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

On Oct. 22, at least two Army officers were killed and 12 soldiers injured in a bombing outside Rafah, a city divided between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

Officials said suspected Palestinian insurgents detonated a bomb near two buses traveling toward the 14-kilometer Gazan border with the Sinai Peninsula.

“Terrorists attacked two buses that were transporting soldiers in northern Sinai,” Egyptian military spokesman Col. Ahmed Ali said.

The attack was the latest insurgency operation around Rafah, the focus of the smuggling tunnel network between Gaza and Sinai. Officials said at least 800 tunnels have been destroyed in 2013, most of them during the counter-insurgency campaign launched in August.

Ali said an undetermined number of attackers detonated three bombs as
the military buses approached Rafah. He said insurgents, who fled amid
counter-fire, also strafed the entire military convoy on the road to Rafah
from El Arish.

Officials said insurgency operations have declined in October,
particularly in central Sinai. But they acknowledged continued improvised
explosive attacks on army and police around Rafah.

The insurgents were said to have been avoiding frontal attacks on army
and police in favor of IED and light weapons ambushes. On Oct. 18, an
Egyptian policeman was assassinated in northern Sinai by a suspected
Islamist insurgency squad near El Arish.

“We know for certain that the terrorists are receiving less support from
the Bedouins in central Sinai,” an official said. “But they are also
receiving steady support from elements within the Gaza Strip.”

  Col. Ahmed Ali, El Arish, Gaza, Hamas, Insurgents attack Egyptian Army convoy near Gaza border, Palestinian insurgents suspected in bomb attack on Egyptian Army convoy, Rafah, Sinai