Egyptian security forces have killed 36 suspected militants over five days as part of a sweeping operation against the Islamic State (IS) group on the Sinai Peninsula, the military said in a statement on March 19.
The army launched the campaign last month after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is standing in elections this month for his second term, gave it a three-month deadline to crush IS in Sinai.
Over the past five days, soldiers also arrested 345 suspected militants, the statement said.
Since the military, then led by Sisi, ousted Islamist president Muhammad Morsi in 2013, security forces have sought to stifle attacks by an Egyptian jihadist group that later declared allegiance to IS.
IS claimed responsibility for the 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner carrying tourists from the South Sinai resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, which killed all 224 people on board.
