ISIS-linked militants target Egyptian navy ship off Sinai coast
CAIRO -- An Egyptian navy vessel was targeted on Thursday by militants affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who said they destroyed it with a rocket while it was anchored off the Sinai peninsula's Mediterranean coast.
Egyptian military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir said the vessel caught fire in an exchange of fire with "terrorists" on the shore and that there were no fatalities among its crew members. He did not say how much damage the vessel suffered and gave no details on the type of ship or the size of its crew.
However, security officials said an unspecified number of crew members suffered injuries from the fire and that several of them jumped overboard to escape the raging fire.
The Egyptian ISIS affiliate, which calls itself the Sinai Province of the ISIS, said it destroyed the vessel with a rocket. Its claim of responsibility came in a statement posted on Twitter accounts known to be linked to the group.
CBS News' Khaled Wassef reports the group released a set of still pictures depicting the attack on the ship, saying it was destroyed by a guided missile.
عاجل
ولاية سيناء
تدمير فرقاطة للجيش المصري في البحر المتوسط بصاروخ موجه pic.twitter.com/teiNGCKZX6
— فلوجة العز #تكريت (@faluja2299) July 16, 2015
The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified, but it was accompanied by photos purporting to show what appears to be a rocket flying toward the vessel, a large explosion engulfing most of the boat and then black smoke rising up from the vessel.
A witness, fisherman Abu Ibrahim Mohammed from the neighboring Gaza Strip, said the vessel was a gunboat that was about a nautical mile off the coast when it caught fire. He did not hear the explosion but saw two smaller boats later trying to put out the fire and that a third, larger one later arrived and towed the burned vessel away.
Two speed boats were seen later combing the area as gunshots occasionally rang out, he added.
The vessel, according to the security officials, routinely patrols Egyptian territorial waters and has frequently been used to transport army and police personnel to mainland Egypt, the officials said. The sea route avoids the overland journey through Sinai, where Islamic militants target government forces.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
In a separate development, Egypt's interior minister, who is in charge of security, on Thursday fired the Egyptian capital's security chief - Maj. Gen. Osama Beder - less than a year after he took the job. The move followed a series of high-profile bombings in the city, including a car bomb late last month that killed the nation's chief prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, in the capital's Heliopolis district.
Beder will be replaced by Maj. Gen. Khaled Abdel-Al, another veteran of the nation's highly militarized police.
On Saturday, a massive car bomb devastated the Italian consulate in the heart of Cairo. An Egyptian was killed in the early morning blast that rocked much of the city of some 18 million people. No Italians were hurt in the attack.
On Wednesday, the military said it foiled an attempted attack on a military post on a highway linking Cairo with the Red Sea coast. The driver of a car that was carrying 1,100 pounds of dynamite refused to stop at a checkpoint, drawing fire from the troops, the military said. The car then swerved off the road and the driver was killed, the military said in a statement.
Egypt's ISIS affiliate said it was behind Wednesday's incident, claiming the car's driver was a suicide bomber who had detonated his explosives, killing several soldiers. The authenticity of the claim could not be independently verified, though it was carried by Twitter accounts affiliated with the group.
The military denied the claim.
Egypt faces threats from multiple insurgent factions, including the ISIS affiliate in Sinai, which the military says killed at least 17 soldiers in a July 1 assault there. Officials from several branches of Egypt's security forces previously told The Associated Press that that attack killed dozens more.
On Thursday, a roadside bomb went off at a busy square also in the Heliopolis district, injuring a traffic policeman, security officials said. The bomb targeted the part of Roxy square where traffic and other policemen routinely gather.