Saudi King has ‘full confidence’ in Egypt security

Cairo // Gunmen killed eight civilians, including a child, in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula where the army is battling an insurgency, security forces said on Thursday as assailants shot at a church near Cairo setting off a gunbattle with police.

Despite concerns about rising militancy in Egypt, following suspicions that ISIL-affiliated militants planted a bomb that downed a Russian plane over Sinai, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has expressed full confidence in Egypt’s security.

No one was killed in Thursday’s church attack but police guarding the premises near the Giza pyramids were left with scrapes and bruises, Egypt’s Mena news agency said. The three attackers escaped after the firefight.

On Wednesday night, unidentified armed men shot and killed seven men and a four-year-old child in their home in El Arish in North Sinai.

The victims, who were from the town of Rafah on the border with the Gaza Strip, had been killed for cooperating with the security forces, a security official said.

Egypt’s affiliate of the ISIL extremist group previously claimed to have executed several Sinai inhabitants that it accused of being informants for the security forces.

The extremists also claimed to have downed the Russian Metrojet A321 plane over the Sinai on October 31, killing all 224 people on board the plane that was leaving Sharm El Sheikh for St Petersburg.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has expressed “full confidence” in Egyptian security measures, ordering Riyadh’s national airline to continue flights to Sharm El Sheikh despite suspicions a bomb downed the Russian airliner.

An ally of Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the king “directed Saudi Arabian Airlines to continue running flights to Sharm El Sheikh from Riyadh and Jeddah in support of tourism in the Arab Republic of Egypt”, the Saudi press agency reported on Thursday.

“The king stressed full confidence in Egyptian security, army and government,” it said.

Mr El Sisi has promised a transparent probe and cautioned against hasty conclusions over what brought down the Metrojet Airbus A321.

ISIL’s Sinai branch claimed responsibility but has not explained how it carried out the attack.

Britain suspended flights to Sharm El Sheikh after saying it feared a bomb caused the disaster and voicing concerns over airport security at the Red Sea resort.

Russia also halted all fights to Egypt.

Egypt’s tourism industry, vital to its economy, has already suffered from years of political instability and attacks claimed by extremists.

Saudi Arabia has offered billions of dollars in aid to Egypt since 2013. Mr El Sisi was in Riyadh this week for a summit of Arab and South American states.

During his visit, ministers from the two countries signed a document to create a council for implementing the so-called Cairo declaration agreed to in late July.

The declaration aims to boost military and economic ties.* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press