CAIRO // An Egyptian navy vessel was targeted on Thursday by militants affiliated with ISIL, who said they destroyed it with a rocket while it was anchored off the Sinai 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 sustained and gave no details about the type of ship or the size of its crew.
Security officials said an unspecified number of crew members suffered injuries in the fire and that several jumped overboard to escape a raging fire.
The Egyptian ISIL affiliate, called the Sinai Province of the Islamic State, said it destroyed the vessel with a rocket. Its claim was made in a statement posted on Twitter accounts known to be linked to the group.
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 towards the vessel, a large explosion engulfing most of the boat, and then black smoke rising from the vessel.
The attack is the first of its kind by the ISIL affiliate, representing a qualitative evolution in the military capabilities of the group, whose campaign of violence has been mostly restricted to the northern part of Sinai bordering Gaza and Israel.
On Wednesday, the military said it foiled an attempted attack on a military post on a highway linking Cairo to the Red Sea coast. The driver of a car that was carrying 500 kilogrammes of explosives refused to stop at a checkpoint, drawing fire from troops, the military said. It then swerved off the road and the driver was killed, it said.
Egypt’s ISIL affiliate said it was behind the incident, claiming the car’s driver was a suicide bomber who had detonated his explosives, killing several soldiers. This claim was denied by the military.
A witness, fisherman Abu Ibrahim Mohammed from the neighbouring Gaza Strip, said the vessel targeted on Thursday 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 trying to put out the fire and that a third, larger one later arrived and towed the burnt vessel away. Two speed boats were later seen combing the area as gunshots rang out, he said.
The vessel, according to security officials, has been routinely used to patrol Egyptian territorial waters and has frequently transported army and police personnel to mainland Egypt. The sea route avoids the overland journey through Sinai, where militants target government forces.
Egypt faces threats from several insurgent factions, including the ISIL affiliate in Sinai, which the military said killed about 17 soldiers in an assault on July 1. Scores of militants were also killed in subsequent fighting on the day, according to the military.
Officials from several branches of Egypt’s security forces have previously said the attack killed dozens of government troops.
In a separate development on Wednesday, Egypt agreed to revise a controversial article of its touted anti-terror law threatening journalists with jail for reporting anything but the official line on extremist attacks, the state media reported. The planned law sparked a backlash from Egyptian media after it included an article threatening at least two years in prison for publishing “false information on terrorist attacks that contradict official statements”.
The bill is part of tough measures demanded by president Abdel Fattah El Sisi as part of a crackdown on militants who have troubled the country since the army ousted his predecessor, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013.
Egypt’s cabinet agreed to remove the threat of jail, but replaced it with a heavy fine, the Mena news agency reported.
* Associated Press , with additional reporting from Agence France-Presse
