The 15 militants were hanged after they were tried and convicted by military tribunal over the 2013 attach that killed an army officer and eight
Egypt Executes 15 Islamic Militants
Egypt has carried out mass execution of Islamic militants convicted of carrying out a deadly attack on an army outpost in the Sinai Peninsula in 2013.
The 15 convicts were executed through hanging.
Tuesday’s executions, carried out simultaneously in two prisons located north of Cairo, is the largest mass execution in Egypt since six convicted jihadists were hanged in 2015.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi has ordered the military to step up efforts to crush Islamic State militants following the massacre of more than 300 people in an attack on a Sinai mosque last month.
Sinai-based Islamic forces have killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers, and civilians in the region for years.
They were convicted of killing soldiers, carrying out assassinations, and destroying military vehicles.
It was the first mass execution in the country since six jihadists were hanged in 2015.
Sinai has in recent years been beset by an insurgency, with jihadist groups including so-called Islamic State (IS) attacking targets including army, police and judges.
The BBC said that last week, IS blew up a grounded helicopter with an anti-tank missile at a North Sinai airport, killing an army officer and wounding two others.
And in November, suspected IS militants carried out a devastating bomb and gun attack on a mosque in North Sinai that killed more than 250 people.
In the wake of that attack, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi gave the military a three-month deadline to quell the unrest in Sinai, instructing it to use “brute force”.
The executions of so many on a single day appears to be a reflection of the government’s recently declared resolve to crush the insurgency following the massacre by militants of more than 300 people in a Sinai mosque last month.
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